“Pride of the fleet” returns to WPYR Railroad

White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad welcomed the #73 steam locomotive back into service in Skagway this month.

“Watch you ears!” shouts engineer Jim Hamilton, as he toots the horn on the #73 steam engine.

Hamilton has been an engineer for White Pass for decades. He pulling the engine onto the tracks for it’s Fraser Meadows Excursion. It’s hot on the engine and flame flickers in the boiler. Dozens of bright red knobs adjust the fire, the boiler pressure and the water. A bright pressure gauge gleams in the middle of what would be the dashboard if this were a car.

“It’s a little more challenging than running the diesel,” he laughs.

“They’re all great jobs, but it’s just you get to know the engine. It becomes part of you.”

Hamilton has worked this train since the 1960s–the #73 ran freight from 1947 to 1964, then came back to Skagway in the 80s as a passenger train when White Pass re-opened.

He says he prefers operating the steam engine to the other trains in the fleet.

“Steam is so much different than running a diesel locomotive. It has a personality of its own. It does its own thing, and if you treat it right, it treats you right. A diesel, you turn the key on and off you go. This, you have to keep water in it, steam in it, fire in it. And if you don’t, it lets you know! So it’s a lot of fun,” he said.

It takes two people to operate the engine: one to keep the fire going and one to keep the train moving. They’re called the fire man and the engineer. As we start moving, plumes of steam unfurl into the sky above Skagway.

Tourists and residents alike stop and stare as the engine chugs along, then lets out a loud hiss of steam.

“Its history of the nation. It’s cool to see it still functioning,” said tourist Mark Gephart. He and his wife Arlene are visiting Alaska from Wisconsin. They film the steam engine’s progress down the track.

Folks at White Pass call #73 the pride of the fleet. It’s been out of town for a year and a half for a maintenance overhaul and a paint job that makes this throwback from 1947 look like new. Mark Taylor is the Superintendent of Rail Operations at White Pass.

“We’re excited have it back! We missed it the last 18 months,” he said.

The train was shipped down to Washington State where it was stripped down and almost completely disassembled. All the parts were either renewed or replaced. Then it was put back together, fire tested, pressure tested, and sent home.

It’s a piece of living history: engine #73 was also the last narrow gauge steam engine out of its factory in Philadelphia in the late 40s. The manufacturing world transitioned to diesel. Taylor is hoping to keep this piece of Skagway’s past chugging into the future.

“It definitely is a last linkage to a bygone era. It was the last steam locomotive purchased by White Pass. It brings back a lot of memories for people,” said Taylor.

And it’s not just tourists that like to watch the train. Taylor has been hearing the whistle since he was a little boy. He says it’s still his favorite part of the train.

“The sound of it is always it always draws me out of the office to go watch it chug buy as it goes up the hill,” he said.

Now the 73 will take a few trips a week up the pass to Fraser carrying a maximum of about 200 passengers. There may be more economical models now, but standing in the loud engine as the train rumbles along the track, it’s easy to see why they keep this one around.