Large Scale Central

White Pass & Yukon Route

Prototypes
#1

Just got around to to having a good look at “The White Pass and Yukon Route - A Pictorial History” By Stan Cohen, ISBN 0-933126-08-5

WOW! I’m impressed!

During 1942-45 the US Army was running the railway and all kinds of equipment from the lower 48 was shipped to Skagway to haul the gazillion tons of material required for the ALCAN Highway and the CANOL pipeline feeding a refinery at Whitehorse.

I bought three WP&YR books while we were in rainy Skagway last week, but the above outshines the other two by far! And this all in B&W!

#2

Silverton Northerns engines that were stored when the RR shut down were appropriated by the Army along with a number of D&RG NG engines and sent “North to Alaska”. Most never came back south except for the cutting torch.

I was told or read someplace that the only reason that the “Ks” didn’t go North was that the track work and bridges in Alaska couldn’t stand the weight of the heavy engines. At the time the RGS was shipping Uranium ore out on the D&RG and the department of defense had a high priority on those shipments. Thus saving the beloved “Ks” for the Farmington oil pipe boom to come after the war.

#3

Dave,
Seven of the ten K-28’s the D&RGW owned were purchased by the US Army and sent to the WP&Y.
They were barged back to Seattle in 1944 and scrapped.

#4

They got stuff from the EBT and the ETWN i.e from far off places all over the 48.