Got Alcos? In the world of tourist railroading, the White Pass & Yukon is a powerhouse. In their short, May thru September operating season, this narrow gauge railroad has run as many as 440,000 people from Skagway to White Pass and back. Needless to say, that takes a lot of trains...as many as 13 per day. To do this work, the WP&YR has a total of 20 diesel-electric locomotives and 2 steam engines. While the shovel-nose GE 90 Class diesels and the steamers seem to get all of the glory, there's another batch of diesels without which those impressive ridership numbers could never be achieved. Back in 1969 when the railroad was still a freight-hauler, a batch of 7 Alco-designed and MLW-built DL535Es were purchased by the WP&YR. In 1971, three additional examples were acquired, all of which were MLW-built. Finally, in 1991, a single wide-cab unit, built by Bombardier nearly a decade earlier, was added to the fleet. Within a year of the original buy, 2 of the units from that lot (102 & 105) were lost in a round-house fire. In addition, the remaining 5 examples from that original buy were sold to a railroad in Columbia in 1992....and then were reacquired by the WP&YR 7 years later. The current "Alco" fleet numbers 9 locomotives. In this scene, you see #108 (from the 1971 buy), along with 4 others (107, 106, 104 and 101) from the original 1969 lot, as they sit on a storage track in the Skagway yard, approximately 1 week before the beginning of the 2011 operating season. Note the difference in color schemes. Of late, the WP&YR seems to be favoring an aquamarine color over the more traditional lime green.
