White Pass: US-Canada Border. The White Pass Rotary Fleet arrives at the place for which the line is named: the famed White Pass. Appropriately enough, a light snow is falling. Behind the Rotary Fleet, you can see the distinctive green and yellow colors of the GE 90-Class Diesels leading our photographer's chase train. The particular location you see here is called US-Canada Boundary Shed because this is the US-Canada Border, and the location used to be sheltered by a large snowshed back when the line was a year-round freight hauler. There's a good reason this place is called "White Pass". Although there was no snow at all just a few miles behind these trains, the snow depths here averaged roughly 10 feet, with drifts that were about double that depth. This scene is a bit deceiving. The snow pack on which the photographer and the railroaders are standing covers a railroad siding. The snow cover on top of this track has already been cut down substantially by "Cats" (large, Caterpillar Bulldozers). You get a better indication of the real snow depth by looking at the left side of the image, near the rotary's intake. During the next two days, the "Cats" will be running out ahead of the rotary, shaving off the top layers of snow so that the depth does not exceed the height of the plow's intake scoop. Still, even with the help of the "Cats", it will take a day and a half of hard struggle to go through the roughly one mile stretch of the heaviest drifts and reach MP 21, where the snow depths will decrease to a more manageable 2-3 feet.
