Last month I was able to find my way onto the Alaska Railroad Glacier Discovery day trip train. I was mostly interested in getting away from civilization and taking fewer photos than usual. Actually, I almost couldn't fathom getting on a train after the Grand Canyon Limited with 14 hour days, 2800 photos and unlimited heat in the desert. But hey, I got half off on the fare and took Dusty's dogmobile and made the train.

My personal fishing expedition preceded any thoughts of train chasing or riding. On July 16 the boat "Wet Dreams" had some sort of problem on the Kenai River where they had hoped to do some dipnetting for sockeye salmon. They were stuck there for at least 5 hours.



On the way back from fishing, July 18, we caught up to the Alaska Railroad Glacier Discovery. At Girdwood, we stopped for gasoline and I ran up to the road overcrossing and got this. The passenger train was on the siding and the Whittier bound COFC held the mainline track. Once they moved, I walked back to the gas station for the rest of the ride back to Anchorage.



With a free day on July 22, I booked myself onto the Glacier Discovery and caught the meet with a cruise train along the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet.



I decided to play with the flash in one of the tunnels and got this.



On my last day, I had intended on taking the Denali Star from Anchorage to Talkeetna and would have had to hitchhike back to Anchorage. I decided to go to the depot and watch the Denali Star leave, went to Snow City Cafe for breakfast and ran down the hill to catch the July 23 Glacier Discovery making its way out of town. Each time I saw this train it had a different configuration. Anyone see something familiar here?