Alaska Railroad: The Aurora Winter Train, Anchorage - Fairbanks (Repost)

Today we are riding Aurora Winter Train on Alaska Railways. First, we need to check in. 7:45 AM - We still have 45 minutes until departure Let's check out the station. As you can see we are riding the train just before Halloween! The train station is really small, but it is warm and has coffee. 8:00 AM - More people and more action. 8:10 AM - All Aboard! It is a pretty short train - 2 passenger cars, a dining car, luggage car and 2 locomotives. We are riding in the car A today. The car looks like a typical commuter rail car. In the summer they use glass-dome compartments with large panorama windows. They cannot heat these up in the winter though. It is 8:30 AM. We are leaving exactly on time! Amazing! Let's check the restroom while it is still fresh and clean. Pretty standard for a commuter rail train. 8:45 AM - It's finally possible to see something outside. Crossing Eagle River. 9:00 AM - 20 min until sunrise. Time to check out dining car and get something to drink. We had a good breakfast at the hotel, so we are skipping breakfast on the train. There is hot water and coffee. These are Pioneer Peak and Twin Peaks. 9:30 AM - We finally see some sunrise colors. This area is very marshy due to permafrost. If you like this video, please hit the 👍 button. 9:50 AM - We have reached Wasilla. 10:30 AM - Starting to see more and more snow. Pretty sunrise! 10:40 AM - We finally see the sun! 11:30 AM - We are passing through the area affected by the McKinley Fire 3 years ago. 11:50 AM - We are taking a 10 min break in Talkeetna 12:40 PM - It's lunch time. It is very shaky on this train. Hit pause to read the menu. I think I will go with Reindeer Penne Bolognese. While we are waiting for lunch we can enjoy the view from the left window. We are in the area with no roads, electricity or cell service. The only way for locals to get in and out of the area is by a train. But there are no train stations here. So, Alaska railroad operates "flagstop" service here. The locals can "flag" the train at designated places and it will stop and pick them up. Crossing Susitna River. The food has arrived. 1:20 PM - Back at our seat after satisfying lunch 1:37 PM - Approaching Hurricane Gulch Bridge The bridge is almost 100 years old It's 296 feet or 90 meters down. 2:00 PM - Half way point - Honolulu, Alaska. Honolulu, Alaska seems to be much colder in the winter than Honolulu, Hawaii. Time to get back to my seat. Suddenly, mount Denali showed up in the clouds for a moment. It would show up on the left side from time to time, but it was difficult to catch. 3:35 PM - We reached the town of Denali. Crossing the the Riley Creek bridge. 4:07 PM - After a brief stop at Denali it is time for dinner reservations. We are skipping dinner tonight. 4:20 PM - This is the Moody bridge that we will go under in a bit. The water in these rivers can be quite murky because of silt. This very fine powder also called "glacial flour". It is the result of glaciers slowly grinding underlying bedrock. We are entering the coal region. Healy Coal-fired power station. These black lines are coal. 5:10 PM - We don't have much of the daylight left. Beautiful sunset, and we are slowly getting back to darkness. 6:15 PM - We are approaching Nenana, the last stop before the final destination. There are still 2 hours to go. 6:20 PM - Crossing Mears Memorial Bridge. For the next hour it was too dark to see anything until we reached our final destination 7:53 PM - We are arriving to Fairbanks. 8:10 PM - We have arrived! It looks really cold It IS freaking cold! No image stabilization can deal with my frozen shaking hands :) Until next time!

Channel: igorealism

Views: 54,989

Keywords: alaska railroad, aurora winter train, alaska trains, winter in anchorage alaska, winter in alaska, alaska aurora winter train, winter in fairbanks alaska, trip report, winter train, alaska train, anchorage alaska to fairbanks

Id: iP3SjcQ4hm4

Length: 24min 9sec (1449 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 09 2022