Alaska Railroad
The Alaska Railroad is a rail line that extends from Seward, in the south of the state of Alaska, in the United States, to Fairbanks, in the interior of that state. It carries both cargo and passengers between those two cities and to many destination between them, including Denali National Park. The railroad is 470 miles long. It is currently owned by the State of Alaska.
The Alaska Railroad's official website is at .
History
In 1902 a company called the Alaska Central Railroad becan to build a rail line beginning at Seward, near the south tip of the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska northward. The company built 51 miles of track by 1909 and went into receivership. This route carried passengers, freight and mail to the upper Turnagain Arm. From there these goods were taken by boat at high tide, and by dog team or pack train to Eklutna and the Matanuska-Susitna Valley.
In 1909, another company, the Alaska Northern Railroad Company, bought the rail line and extended it another 21 miles northward. From the new end, good were floated down the Turnagain Arm in small boats. The Alaska Northern Railroad went into receivership in 1914.
About this time, the United States Government was planning a railroad route from Seward to the interior town of Fairbanks. In 1914, the government bought the Alaska Northern Railroad and moved its headquarters to Ship Creek, later called Anchorage. The government began to extended the rail line northward.
In 1917, the Tanana Valley Railroad in Fairbanks was falling into receivership. It owned a small 72 km (45 mile) narrow-gauge line that serviced the towns of Fairbanks and Nenana as well as the boat docks on the Tanana River near Fairbanks.
The government bought the Tanana Valley Railroad, principally for its terminal facilities, and began to convert its tracks to the standard gauge. In 1923 the government extended the south portion of the track to Nenana and built a 276 m (700 ft) bridge that connected the southern tracks to the former Tanana Valley
Railroad tracks. At the time, this was the largest single-span steel bridge in the world. U. S. President Warren G. Harding drove the golden spike that completed the railroad on July 15, 1923.
In 1985, the State of Alaska bought the railroad from the U. S. government.
Currently, there is a proposal to extend the railroad from Fairbanks to Delta Junction to handle the agricultural and
construction activity in that region.
