This journey actually started with a ride on the Alaska Railroad’s Winter Train from Denali Park up to Fairbanks. It was a beautiful late winter day in Alaska’s interior – sunny and about 5°F – perfect for the scenic four hour train ride up to Fairbanks.

The Alaska Railroad is owned by the State of Alaska and is the last full service railroad in the U.S., providing both passenger and freight service year round. From mid-September to mid-May, the ARR’s Aurora Winter Train operates between Anchorage and Fairbanks on weekends only. The schedule offers northbound service from Anchorage on Saturdays and southbound return from Fairbanks on Sunday. Unlike the daily summer service which makes scheduled stops only in Wasilla, Talkeetna and Denali Park, the winter train will pick up just about anywhere simply by flagging down the engineers. With all the four-wheelers and snow machines up here, there doesn’t need to be a road for some folks to get to the train.

Although there is a train station at Denali National Park, it’s not open during the winter months and the access road to it is not plowed. Instead I met the train where the tracks cross the park road by the Horseshoe Lake trailhead pullout. The park road is maintained up to headquarters at mile 3.5 and the trailhead pullout offered a nice wide area to sit and wait.



A good place to meet the train

A schedule is posted for the winter service, but it can vary a bit depending upon how many enroute stops are made and how long they’re for. For example, some people may be getting off in the woods out by Trapper Creek with a load of wood they purchased down in Anchorage or they’ve got something bulky they need to load onboard that needs to go in the baggage car. Today however the train was right on time. The whistle sounded as it passed Denali Park Station a half mile up the tracks and shortly thereafter the engine came into view with four cars in tow.



Here comes the train!

Unlike freight trains which can require a mile or more to bring to a complete stop, our little passenger train was able to stop in a much shorter distance. That’s because the Winter Train doesn’t require many cars since ridership is usually limited to a few locals and an occasional tour group. Today’s consist was led by the ARR’s flagship locomotive, an SD70MAC followed by a GP-40 locomotive, a cafe/lounge car, two flat top coaches and a baggage car. Once I’d climbed aboard, the conductor radioed an okay to the engineer who dialed up the significant locomotive power at his command and we quickly resumed our northward journey.

Regular readers of my trip reports may recall I reported on this train trip back in December when it was substantially darker. Indeed I did the entire trip in darkness despite the 3:55pm departure time. Now, three months later, we Alaskans are gaining an impressive seven minutes of sunshine each day. Today that meant that most of this trip was done under sunny skies. I think at this point I’ll let pictures tell the rest of the story.



Heading north out of Denali Park



The Alaska Range towers overhead



Entering the Nenana River Canyon



Is that a Dall Sheep up there?

Following an on time arrival into Fairbanks, I returned home to my cabin in the woods. Snow started falling that night and by mid-afternoon the next day it looked like this:



Winter’s not over yet

The next morning, the taxi driver got stuck getting out to my place. I still don’t understand how because the roads were in pretty good shape, but either way I now had no ride to the airport and my plane was leaving in an hour and fifteen minutes. I ended up driving myself to the airport and leaving an envelope with $40.00 and a spare key on my neighbor’s porch so that he could grab a cab to the airport, pay the day’s lot rent and drive my truck back home. He’s a great neighbor!