Looking forward to them! Always love a good Alaska Railroad photo album.

You mentioned having never ridden the train in the US before. Just so you know, the Alaska Railroad is a completely different experience than Amtrak in the Lower 48. The ARR is owned by the State of Alaska and while it (especially the winter train) does provide functional transportation, it is really focused on the leisure/tourism market. Amtrak is a product of the federal government and is mostly supposed to be functional transportation, and while many Amtrak routes offer spectacular scenery, that's mostly incidental to their mandate.

The ARR operates much more like a "land cruise," while travel on Amtrak ranges from practical (at best) long-distance travel (with a comfortable, but not in the least upmarket) sleeper class product to the purely utilitarian corridor/commuter services (of which there are many out of Chicago and are basically a slightly more comfortable version of Metra).

The ARR focuses on a positive passenger experience, since the summer tourism season provides nearly all of their passenger revenue and a good chunk of their total annual revenue, and staff are hired accordingly. In contrast, Amtrak has more than its share of unionized, surly people, even in the crafts that are very customer-facing (like dining/sleeper/coach attendants). Amtrak is much more like a land-based version of American Airlines, if that means anything.