Canadian Adventure: White Pass and Yukon 1999...

In 1999 my parents, brothers and I headed further north that we had done 1989 and onto the Yukon. When I was little I used to spend hours with my good friend Tim pouring over the LGB catalogue, I always had dream of owning one of their WP&Y diesels...

Fast forward 10 years and I'm waking up on the morning, 7th August 1999, heading from Whitehorse down the highway to Skagway for a ride on the famous 3ft gauge White Pass and Yukon. Back then, trains were running only from Skagway up to Summit or Lake Bennet, but we did see a work train at Carcross, and obviously more recently trains operate to the small settlement there. I've taken photos of my slides again, these are of mixed quality but hopefully of general interest. I must get around to getting all of these digitised properly some day. I've added some captions where possible, it was an amazing trip and one I will never forget, the scenery from the train as we climbed to summit was absolutely breath taking, and the engineering challenge in building the railway did not pass me by - especially when I began to think that until the 1980s long ore trains were bringing containers of material down from the Yukon interior to the harbour at Skagway. Now of course, that's all gone and the only ships visiting are those disgorging hundreds of tourists from their mobile cruise ship hotels. What a shame that both couldn't have continued together, but seeing more investment from the current WP&Y owners with new diesels are positive signs.

Tunnel Mountain from the end balcony of our coach.

Glacier Station on our descent back to Skagway

Work train perhaps, at the US/Canada border.

Alco's on shed at Skagway - note the non WP&Y loco that had recently returned to the line.

Dad and Number 73 at Skagway.

Rotary plough at Skagway.

Carcross bridge...

GE 95 at Carcross with a works train.

Whitehorse transport museum.

Whitehorse WP&Y shed.

To finish, a WP&Y loco at McBride museum with Rob, Andrew and my Mum. A wonderful holiday and memories that I'll treasure. These 'look back' photos of old slides will continue, I've got a few more sets from 1999 and then on to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland in 2001. More soon...