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White Pass & Yukon Route passes on freight
Bad idea. They sure try to make themselves as useful as possible to their service area.
George
Why in the world did they reject freight?
Passenger traffic must be really profitable for the WP&Y to turn up their corporate nose at freight traffic, aka profitability. Must have to do with the terms of the deal.
Yo! NIMBYs and Yuppies rule! What stupidity. Tear up the tracks and make it a ‘hiking-and-biking’ trail.
This is very bad to read about this railroad…I do not know
what they are thinking…there is money to be made that can
help improve the railroad and provide more revenue too.
To go into the freight traffic, aka profitability, biz, build terminal track, buy some more narrow gage lokies and cars not bigger or heavier than the current real, and replica, turn of the (19th) century cars; alternatively, rebuild the bridges, straighten the curves, lay heavier rail from mine to harbor, increase clearances…
Correct business decision?
All of the above for 6 or 7 months of traffic.
And, when I drove from Skagway to Whitehorse, Along side the WP&Y, the only “communities up there” were caribou herds, wolf packs and mosquito swarms.
Several things are going on here. The monetary compensation offered to the railroad probably didn’t cover the cost of operating extra freight trains, crews, upgrading the track, building yards, and purchasing and maintaining the rolling stock. Tourist boats are willing to pay their way when it comes to moving tourists in and out of the tourist trap otherwise known as Skagway and odds are, the tourist boats don’t want dirty mine trains getting dirt on the tourists as they pass by in the sidings. The freight would have to move when the tourists are not taking up space on a railroad that has just so much capacity. The size of the trucks competing with the railroad was not specified. They could be anything from your typical tandem axle dump truck to the 168,000 lb gross 11 axle articulated Michigan Special to 250 ton mine trucks operating on their own special road built by the mine.
Freight pays the bills, why not?
Did TRAINS recently change editors for its Web site news? So many of these stories posted in recents weeks seem to leave key questions unanswered (probably because they are unasked). You guys need to quit relying on press releases and secondary sources and place some calls yourself. This is getting a bit shoddy. Leads to too many readers making ridiculous speculations/statements, such as many on this string.
Did TRAINS recently change editors for its Web site news? So many of these stories posted in recents weeks seem to leave key questions unanswered (probably because they are unasked). You guys need to quit relying on press releases and secondary sources and place some calls yourself. This is getting a bit shoddy. Leads to too many readers making ridiculous speculations/statements, such as many on this string.
That Skagway is a tourist trap states the same truth that Chrysler is exporting Jeep building jobs to China; tourist “boats,” big cruise line ships with psgrs who bought their trip, dock at the end of a fjord south and on the opposite side from the village, business district, town, city, call it what you will.
From the “boats tourists” walk across the dock to the train on the dock along side…from the gangway plus 30 feet times the length of the train…many don’t see Skagway if they aren’t looking west as the train leaves town.
The WP&Y has no reason to use its capitol to enable another outfit to use it, the WP&Y RR
When others invest their capital to preserve the WP&Y and promote themselves, let’s encourage these people to transparently stay away.
No wonder railroads are losing business to trucks. That was a very lame move on ClubLink Enterprises.
Railroads are businesses and from my observation this company does a nice job of moving passengers. WP&Y doesn’t appear to do stupid things. I think if the project was profitable, they would figure out a way to do it. Perhaps this is a negotiating position to make it profitable. Why doesn’t Kalmbach call those who made the decision? Readers need an answer from the source - not speculation or anger.
Question; Is this railroad not a common carrier? If they are, how can they refuse business outright?
Are they crazy? I’m 100 per cent for passenger trains but to turn away the frieght business just doesn’t make one lick of sense to me.
What a wonderful way to declare that railroading is irrelevant. The Arctic needs to be opened up, and that railroad could make a small but significant contribution to that sort of development. Instead it tells the world that it is a glorified amusement park ride rather than a working railroad, when it could be the latter and still provide the former. So it will remain just another generally lame short excursion for detached and disinterested cruise ship passengers.
They probably gross in excess of $25 million/year hauling people. Adding a freight haul in which runaways or derailments would choke the main and cause service interruptions likely seemed unreasonable. Three million tons of containerized ore would come close to 50,000 carloads at (3 containers) 20 tons per container. A 40 car train comes to 1,250 trains/year. That is a very busy 3’ gauge railroad with the tourist traffic thrown in. Its been several years since I visited Skagway, so the memory of loading facilities escape me.
Sounds like a bad idea, diversification is a good thing, could regret this choice if the tourist industry tanks.
WP&Y must be being run as a hobby railroad.
Who - in business for real - turns down 5-7 years of guaranteed revenue?