| We awoke in the morning
to find three cruise ships had arrived. This is the Zaandam of the Holland
America Line. |  |
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Two more cruise ships moored on the other side were the Rhapsody of the
Seas, the other is the Romance of the Seas. |
>| The major tourist
attraction of Skagway is the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad. It was built between 1898 and 1900 and ran from Skagway
to Whitehorse. This is the station office. |  |
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The railroad is narrow gauge. This is their operational steam locomotive, a
2-8-2 Mikado built by Baldwins in 1947. |
| A number of services are
run along the single track. Most tours go 20 miles to the Canadian border.
Several times each week additional services run as far as Bennett. |  |
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They have a lot of coaches to carry passengers, mostly from the cruise
ships. Four trains departed one after another, three from the cruise ships
and one from the town. each had 12-15 carriages. |
| These 1200hp locomotives
were built in 1971 by the Montreal Locomotive Works. |  |
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1400hp locomotives built by General Electric in 1954. |
| The heaviest trains have
three locomotives. There are sharp curves and steep gradients up to 3.5% as
they travel up the pass. |  |
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This is Rotary Snowplough No1. Purchased in 1898, it can clear snow up to
10ft deep. It served until 1968. It was renovated in 1996 and is still used. |
| This is the Train Shoppe
which sells anything to do with the railway. |  |
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Just outside the town is the depot with a collection of track maintenance
vehicles. |
| The town streets are very
touristy. There are dozens of jewellery shops. It all seemed rather
artificial to us. |  |
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It is totally aimed at the cruise ship passengers and everything seemed very
over priced. |
| It is all about image and
seems very artificial. Not really our sort of place. |  |
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Jan did look in the quilt shop. I think she would like to do some but it has
to involve proper sewing and not be artificial. |
| These looked good but did
not look like the sort of thing which would attract her. We didn't buy
anything. |  |
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Another part of capturing the tourist. These run town tours. Now you can
walk from the boats to the far edge of town in 15 mins..... . |
| A reminder of the
original reason for the town. The gold seekers arrived here to reach the
gold fields in the Klondike. And most of them walked! |  |
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The M/V Frank H Brown. The WPYR pioneered the concept of transporting
freight by container. Frank Brown was the president of the White Pass &
Yukon Route from 1951-1969 and changed modern freight shipping and created
the worldwide container explosion. |
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