After two days of being laid up sick as a dog all weekend I finally needed to get a little fresh air and get out of the house. Well, a quick look at the turnover revealed a 3:15 PM call on a northbound empty coal train out of Anchorage destined for Healy. A peak out the window revealed magical bluebird skies, so I called up my friend Frank to see if he was interested, and we headed out down the 10 miles of dirt road to this spot. Within 10 minutes of our arrival the three unit set of MACs comes wheeling around the broad curve in charge of 70 coal hoppers, including a good slug of new aluminum hoppers (well new to the ARR anyway) on their maiden voyage in the Last Frontier. Export coal is a robust and growing business in Alaska with over 1.1 million short tons shipped from the interior to Seward in calendar year 2011 with 10%+ annual growth predicted for the foreseeable future. What this means for the train watcher is two dedicated train sets each making two round trips per week and a lot of great photo opportunities. Winter isn't far off though, as the leaves are all but gone from the trees and the snow line is creeping to ever lower elevations every day....
