North to Alaska!

[ehbowen]

Check this out:

Alaska Railroad pens agreement on rail connection to Lower 48

Just a "working agreement," no financing, no survey that I'm aware of. Still, if this ever happens, I believe it would easily be the largest railroad construction project in North America in the past hundred years. Am I correct?

Cue the Bering Strait tunnel pipe dream discussion....

 

[jiml]

One would have to think if this was ever economically viable it would have been done generations ago. Rail lines do exist in some pretty remote locations - Churchill, MB and Moosonee, ON come to mind, as well as the one that stretches north in Alberta that this Alaska line would likely connect to. However they are sparsely used and difficult to maintain, in many cases forced on the railroads by government. An Alaskan connection would cross some desolate and relatively uninhabited space that would see seasonal maintenance issues. Winter would be less of a problem than the thaw-freeze cycles of Spring and Fall. It is possible that "Big Oil" could support such a venture, but likely not long-term given environmental concerns and the future of oil generally.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

Anybody know what the ADN and MRAK abbreviations in the comments stand for? I couldn't find a result after a quick google.

 

[Eric S]

Anybody know what the ADN and MRAK abbreviations in the comments stand for? I couldn't find a result after a quick google.

I'm guessing "Anchorage Daily News" and "Must Read Alaska."

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

Ahhhhh, that was not obvious, thank you!

This would be an interesting project if it actually got going.

 

[Siegmund]

One would have to think if this was ever economically viable it would have been done generations ago.

About two generations ago, to be exact.

There were extensive surveys made in the late 60s and early 70s. The agreed-upon route was quite different than the Alaska Highway's, connecting with BC Rail, not with Northern Alberta Railways. The Alaska Railroad, the White Pass and Yukon, and BC Rail were supposed to meet in Carmacks. BC Rail actually built most of the way from Fort St. James to Dease Lake, BC, and the rest of the way from Dease Lake to the Yukon would have been easy -- no more mountain passes, "only" permafrost -- but the US never appropriated any money to start building the Alaska segment and of course the White Pass went bankrupt and ceased to be a means to supply construction material to the middle.

The 70s surveys were dusted off again in 2010 when Alaska got semi-serious about building eastward from Fairbanks to Delta Junction, with partial funding by the military, but given what happened to the Alaska state budget, that is now stalled indefinitely.

The economics depended both on the 70s-era fuel crisis and on the prospect of several additional hard rock mines opening along the route of the proposed line.

There were hundreds of pages of reports about it, lurking in the basement of the University of Alaska library when I was a student. They are probably still there, waiting for your inter-library loan request to be sent in...

 

[jiml]

Thanks for the history reminder! Of course the demise of BC Rail and its subsequent absorption into CN, with abandonment of key northern lines make this less likely. That's why I presumed the former NAR would be the connector. BC Rail would have made much more sense - especially from a fiscal perspective. Today, while native groups would assess the financial benefits against the environmental concerns, the tree-huggers in California North (aka British Columbia) would have none of it.

 

[Siegmund]

BC provincial government wasn't eager to contribute to the cost of what they considered a federal project back then either.

But a connection eastward toward Fort Nelson would involve an extra mountain crossing and an extra 250-300km of grading over the Dease Lake route. It is a loooooong way east to get to the Fort Nelson part of BCR or any part of ex-NAR. (And would still be mostly in BC.) I haven't seen a clear answer as to how far northward the rails are still in place, but have seen recent-ish pictures showing good quality grade between Gnat Pass and Dease Lake. Seems like a big savings to use what was graded to high standards in the 70s over starting fresh. Maybe even keeps environmentalists happier.

 

[SarahZ]

One would have to think if this was ever economically viable it would have been done generations ago. Rail lines do exist in some pretty remote locations - Churchill, MB and Moosonee, ON come to mind, as well as the one that stretches north in Alberta that this Alaska line would likely connect to. However they are sparsely used and difficult to maintain, in many cases forced on the railroads by government. An Alaskan connection would cross some desolate and relatively uninhabited space that would see seasonal maintenance issues. Winter would be less of a problem than the thaw-freeze cycles of Spring and Fall. It is possible that "Big Oil" could support such a venture, but likely not long-term given environmental concerns and the future of oil generally.

Dream killer.

 

[dlagrua]

From what I had read the Alaska Railroad wants to build a connection to a British Columbia RR that has access to the USA

 

[jiml]

From what I had read the Alaska Railroad wants to build a connection to a British Columbia RR that has access to the USA

All the options have that. Siegmund has described them better than I could without a map. The key is to remember that although we're probably all looking at how cool it would be to take a passenger train on whatever route is chosen, the driver will be economics. If oil is involved a BC routing (to refineries or ocean shipping) may make less sense and draw more environmental protest than the alternative.

 

[Seaboard92]

It’s only a matter of time after that’s opened that the dreamers will start thinking of Alaska-Asia. Of course the freight potential on that would be endless.

My dumb question if this dream gets built who is going to be the passenger operator. The Alaska Railroad, VIA Rail, Rocky Mountaineer, or Amtrak. Personally I would prefer VIA.

 

[jis]

It is a very long way from the Bering Straits to the rail head at Yakutsk, across unstable Tundra, three major rivers and a significant mountain range. Building a railway across all that will be quite challenging. Compared to that, building one from Fairbanks to the Bering Straits will be a Sunday picnic, and that will be hard enough.

 

[jiml]

It is a very long way from the Bering Straights to the rail head at Yakutsk, across unstable Tundra, three major rivers and a significant mountain range. Building a railway across all that will be quite challenging. Compared to that, building one from Fairbanks to the Bering Straights will be a Sunday picnic, and that will be hard enough.

Exactly! As we were discussing earlier in the thread, the ground any northern route may use tends to be problematic during thaw and freeze cycles. The ones that already exist in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario have costly maintenance issues, and there was an excellent TV series which mentioned how the Alaska RR copes with similar problems on some of their lines. Nice to dream though. Let's see when the first shovel goes in the ground.

 

[Gemuser]

It is a very long way from the Bering Straights to the rail head at Yakutsk, across unstable Tundra, three major rivers and a significant mountain range. Building a railway across all that will be quite challenging. Compared to that, building one from Fairbanks to the Bering Straights will be a Sunday picnic, and that will be hard enough.

Correct BUT Russian Railways is already building east from Yakutsk to Magadan, 2,000 km by road, unpaved, about a third of the way to the Bearing Strait. I'll give good odds that they will be at Magadan before there is any link between the Canada & Fairbanks.
IF, IF, IF there was any serious push for a Bearing Strait link it would most likely branch off the Yakutsk-Magadan line about 500 km north of Magadan to Anadyr, the eastern most town in the RFE before heading for the Strait.