Alaska Railroad Freight Car Fleet

[Smurphy]

I was searching for information on the Alaska Railroad freight fleet during the early 1950's. I recently watched a video on GN operations in Washington State and noticed an Alaska gondola on a train during the late 1960's. My question was what freight cars from the Alaska railroad cars showed up in the Lower 48 in the 1950's on Northwest railroads?

[mlehman]

Can't help much on that specific question. There really wasn't any roll-on, roll-off service to Alaska until 1962. Doesn't mean cars weren't moved back and forth, just that it wasn't very much. Reference about halfway down this page:

http://www.alaskarails.org/historical/whittier-history/index.html

Here's a link to the rolling stock info pages on John Combs' Alaska RR website:

http://alaskarails.org/fp/ARR-freight-pass.html

[Smurphy]

Thanks! The best I can figure was that interchange really began in 1962 when the CN began car float operations followed by the GN. Thanks for the reply!

[mlehman]

Keep in mind that this just applies to roll-on, roll-off service. Certainly, RR equipment went to Alaska before that for service there, but it was all break-bulk, sling it off the ship with a crane sort of stuff.

And you will see images of foreign road cars in Alaska prior to 1962. ONe example was a bunch of rather short  (40'??) gons lettered for the Rio Grande. The gov't built these during the war to serve the big Geneva steel mill in Utah. After the war, they then went to Alaska, where they can be seen in various pics over the next few years. Not sure when they were repainted finally, but it proves that you can have some non-Alaska RR stock appearing on an Alaska RR layout before 1962.

The other direction, though, seems pretty unlikely to have Alaska RR cars running around the Lower 48 (BTW, such a great song by the same name by The Gourds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxOPkTiRrWw it ought to be an honarary train song) before 1962 with the exception of new rolling stock moving toward Seattle or to Canada/Prince Rupert for shipment on to Alaska.

[DSchmitt]

The Alaska Railroad is not listed in the July 1950 ORER or the January 1953 ORER. It is listed in the January 1965 ORER.------- Freight connections listed in 1965 Alaska Trainship Corporation Whittier Alaska (from Delta Alaska Terminals, BC) Canadian National, Whittier Alaska (from Prince Rupert BC) Puget Sound Alaska Van Lines, Whittier Alaska (from Seattle Washington) -------They had 1939 freight cars

[mlehman]

The Alaska RR is not in my January 1960 ORER either, narrowing things down further for when they first appeared there. My guess is in 1962.