Has it ever been proposed or studied of the possibility of connecting the Alaska Railroad to the lower 48 and Canada? It seems that as Alaska grows more and more,combined with the high cost of air,sea and ALCAN hiway that it could be a good idia.
I seriosly doubt the “population” of Alaska would ever justify the cost.
I seem to recall a thread or two on here about a study, or studies, about that. However, I doubt it will ever happen.
A few years ago I saw a documentary on Alaska that mentioned that a rail barge from Seattle hauls cars to and from the Lower 48.
I assume it is still in service.
If I’m wrong, let me know.
It’s fun to speculate, and the idea comes up in a serious vein every so often, but the construction costs would be huge and the traffic potential limited.
But if it did get built, I’d sure buy a ticket to ride.
One incentive: If enough railroads got built into the far-north country, would there be some hope for an end to new episodes of “Ice Road Truckers” on the History Channel?
There is a rail barge service that connects the Alaska Railroad to Canadian National at Prince Rupert.
There have been several proposals for connecting the lower 48 with Alaska by rail. All have been very expensive and all have been put on the shelf.
It is known that Alaska has vast coal regions and someday if energy costs keep rising the proposals may be taken from the shelf and looked at again. As long as Wyoming has its coal resources it is doubtful anyone will seriously look at developing a RR to Alaska. And remember that Montana’s coal hasn’t really been touched yet. If more oil development takes place in Alaska once again it will be by pipeline to Valdez or maybe an additional Alaska port. The Alcan highway for the most part is underutilized except during the summer tourist travel season. And the Alcan highway is a year round highway. In the winter it is mostly occupied by eighteen wheelers and Moose. There are other minerals known to be in Alaska such as Uranium but until the US takes a serious look at Nuclear energy that that can be put on the shelf as well.
Al - in - Stockton
also MR> pork barrel himself Senator Ted Stevens is now under indictment. He was a big propnent.
It is an interesting summary of the study although I’d question some of the conclusions. Using Alaska as a location to build a new container port sounds doubtful. It is not even certain Prince Rupert will be a successful container port venture yet and they already had a rail line in place.
As far as existing rail barges are concerned there are two that I am aware of. One leaves from Seattle and aother from Prince Rupert (as already mentioned).
I suspect if such railroads could guarantee an end to that program, one could finance them out of public funds as representing an improvement to the civic discourse! [:-^]
I’d make a voluntary contribution!!!
…Just last night I by chance caught the last 20 or so minutes of a documentary on Alaska RR. One of the segments was positioning the barge to load RR cars onto it…I believe they said a half mile of RR cars. Didn’t catch just where they said it would be headed but it was hundreds of miles. It was really an interesting program. Wish I could have caught it all.
Two things that would stop it are cost and politics. The original ALCAN highway was built during World War II when the U.S. Government was willing to throw billions at the project as a war emergency measure. The cost to build a rail line today would be staggering.
You also must remember that it passes through Canada, who must agree to allow it to happen. Canada agreed to the ALCAN because they could use it to deliver aviation gas to their western defense military airfields at a time when they were under threat of an invasion by Japan, and the U.S. Government agreed to give it to the Canadian Government six months after the end of WW2.
The Canadian Government’s slogan at the time was, “We will supply the soil, and the U.S. will supply the money and toil.”
If someone came up with the capital to undertake such a project – ignoring for a moment the reality of that happening – I think the attitude of the Canadians would be much the same today. After all, it would open an entire section of their country to economic development without their having to provide the transportation infrastructure.
[:O] Then what? They’d have to show history programming?
There would be a small minority of Canadians against the project, but nothing substantial. Agreements would need to be hammered out with all of the First Nations (Indians), whose territories the line would run through.
The United States would see a greater benefit from the Alaskan Natural Gas Pipeline than they would from a railroad. The pipeline is projected to come in at around $25 billion, with constuction not expected to start for several more years.
I believe it was considered as an adjunct or extension of the Alaska Pipeline at the time. But with world…Asian…markets as main customers rather than the lower 48, it was deemed too expensive. Today…who knows what economics would say. I also believe it would come south from Fairbanks through some inland routing rather than coastal. Ecologists certainly would put up a stink and there would be a lot of weighing rail vs pipline in the process. But it is a thought that pops up every once in a while.
garyla wrote:
One incentive: If enough railroads got built into the far-north country, would there be some hope for an end to new episodes of “Ice Road Truckers” on the History Channel?
I have to say if you DON’T LIKE IT, DON’T WATCH IT, now wasn’t that easy? I for one couldn’t care less about televised professional sports, and would be THRILLED if there was NEVER another FOOTBALL game running past it’s allotted time slot pre-empting a show that I would like to watch. But guess what Football sells, and AMAZINGLY (to You at least) so must “ICE ROAD TRUCKER’S” because the ADVERTISERS must feel that they are getting a reasonable return on their money. If the Advertisers didn’t think so the show would be gone VERY QUICKLY.
As a 20 year vetran of the Highways, I DO find it interesting, and frankly, if the economy doesn’t start to rebound here soon, I may consider taking a leave of absence from my current employer, and give the ICE a try. I think that it would be a New Challenge Professionally, Interesting and a way to bolster my yearly income. I Hope that things turn around here, I currently have a Monday-Thursday(should be Friday) job with lots of Home time, but I would like to make closer to what I had been during the better times. It’s a lot easier to play, when well funded.
Doug
It’s probably a case of ‘not enough bang for the buck’…too much money and effort for too few benefits. Not enough people/not enough train traffic to justify it, especially over the difficult terrain it would have to cover.
Of course, it would have been a lot easier if British Columbia had decided to join the US instead of Canada in the 19th century.[:)]