Palmer Branch Passenger The Alaska State Fair signals the end of summer in the Last Frontier and is always a grand old time. I have so many cherished memories from those times and riding one of the special Fair Trains up from Anchorage was the only way to go. Of course they were fun to photograph too, especially since they were the only passenger trains of the year to run the Palmer Branch. I saw that this year, 2024, they have finally returned after a five year hiatus although on a more limited schedule of just two round trips a day. Regardless, I'm glad they're back so to celebrate I dug up three photos from nine years ago that I've never before shared. When I first moved to Alaska the ARR normally ran just a couple trains to the fair and they consisted of just usually two old Budd cars pulled/pushed by a geep. But as the popularity grew and the ARR marketed them more the trains grew to five cars including a couple 'heritage' domes bracketed between a pair of geeps or a geep and an F40 power car. On Labor Day afternoon, the last fair train of the year is headed back to Anchorage as it drops down the 0.8% and rounds the better than 10 degree curve approaching Kepler Crossing at about MP A1.2 on the Palmer branch in the woods south of Echo Lake. This seven mile long branch that leaves the mainline at Matanuska Junction is only in service as a bit past MP A4 for these trains that run to the Alaska State Fair on a couple weekends at the end of August and first weekend in September each year. The real reason this branch has hung on is thanks to the unit trains run for Alaska Sand and Gravel which load at MP A3. When they come to a close each October the branch falls silent for better than five months until spring thaw and the dawn of construction season in the 49th state. Punctuating the horizon between the trees draped in a cloak of clouds is the 6093 foot summit of Matanuska Peak in the Chugach Mountains. Leading the way is Alaska Railroad GP40-2 3007 which built new for the railroad in April 1976. She was one of the last 5 to where as delivered black paint until finally receiving this modern look in 2011. Near Palmer, Alaska |
