Breakout! After struggling mightily with 15-20 ft. snow drifts for a day and half, WPY Rotary #1 and her train finally break out of White Pass, just north of Canadian Shed, near MP 21.5, with Rotary Pilot Alvin Gordon leading the charge from the cab door. From here on north to Bennett, BC, the snow depths will be a very manageable 3-6 ft, and the train will make steady progress, vs. stalling every twenty yards as she has been. The photographers and observers on hand had been waiting for this moment all morning. Sensing that the plow was about to break through, the still photographers all raced ahead and formed an impromptu photo line near my camera position. The railroad employees and their videographer took up a position on a hillside in the distance. They can be seen beneath the smoke plume from Locomotive 73. The odd-looking wooden tower on the left side of the photo is not related to the railroad. It is actually a pipeline valve housing associated with an oil pipeline, which used to parallel the rail line.
