Travelling with the Strongs: ALASKA CRUISE part 2 SKAGWAY and the WHITE PASS & YUKON RR

This is the first view we get from one side of the ship tied up to the dock at Skagway. It is not really graffiti, but the painted names of the ships which have tied up there. The practice was started by the first ships to tie up to the nice dock there and the practice has become a custom. This picture was taken from deck 10 of our ship

Our first view of Skagway as we alighted from the shuttle.

Jo in the clutches of a bear at a souvenir store.

The White Pass & Yukon has built tracks right out on the dock for the convenience of passengers on the cruise ships.

The White Pass & Yukon is a 3 ft. narrow gauge railroad. Its single operating steam engine can pull only 6 cars; the two unit diesel-electric engines shown here pull 14 passenger cars. On our afternoon there we saw one train pulled by the steam locomotive and three pulled by the diesels. The diesels may have made a run earlier in the day as well. they were built in the 1950s and 1960s.

As we went up the canyon, this is our first view of the bay where the cruise ships are tied up.

The highway from White Horse, Yukon Territory, to Skagway bisects waterfalls coming off the mountain in the background,

As our train progresses to the right it will go up the side canyon and come back to the main canyon on the higher tracks shown here.

This shot is from the higher tracks shown in the last picture. An up bound train is on the lower track. On the far mountain the road to White Horse crosses the stream which is almost a continuous waterfall as it reaches the Skagway River.

At the top of the pass, just barely in Canada, the engines pass the cars to hook up to what was the rear of the train to lead us back to Skagway. Passengers flip over the backs of their seats and those on the left on the way up (the scenic side) move to the other side so those on the right on the way up can have the scenic side on the way back.

Flags flying at the border .

Abandoned trestle across Skagway River. Picture was taken from the last car on our train shown at left. The steel part of the trestle seems ok, but the wooden part is visibly in disrepair.