White Pass and Yukon Railways - Research Paper Example

White Pass and Yukon Railways (Canada/US) The Klondike gold rush triggered the White Pass and Yukon Railways (WP&YR) construction during the year 1898, after the British investors showed their interest in running this route with an eye on the freight and passenger revenue. This paper discusses about the history of WP&YR. The detail on company profile follows this. The investment pattern and cost estimates given in the paper provide an insight about the cost of men and material used to build this rail route. The construction strategy is further discussed, providing details of building the rail track from Skagway to Whitehorse in sections, including engineering challenges it posed. A viewpoint on building WP&YR in modern times follows the report on construction details. (source: http://wpyr.com/product/ticket/summit-excursion/ , WP&YR excursion train) Introduction As the discovery of gold on 16 August 1896 triggered the rush of gold miner prospectors from Seattle and San Francisco to the Klondike region of Yukon, these hopeful contenders used the White Pass to explore the region in search of gold. Thomas White, the Canadian interior minister gave the name to this pass. The White Pass situated at a height of almost 3000 feet passes through the boundary ranges of coastal mountains of USA in the state of Alaska that borders British Columbia in Canada. The headwater of Yukon River has chain of lakes that include Bennett, Lindeman and Crater lakes The white Pass connects the Skagway borough in Alaska USA to these lakes. History of White Pass & Yukon Railways Few civil engineering marvels in the world include Panama Canal, Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty. WP&YR is an addition to this list as it was built at a height of around 3000 feet through the mountains on a narrow gauge railway track. The construction period for this project lasted around 27 months, as engineers faced the tough challenges of quarrying through the series of mountains. While Britain arranged the required finances, United States of America provided engineering expertise; Canadian contractors executed the job successfully. Also nicknamed as Golden railways, WP&YR presented tough challenges for engineers who charted the tough route for this marvel after using almost 450 tons of blast explosives. Several thousands of human workers were able to finish the challenging job that included working in harsh climate and rough geographical terrain. During the incline of 20 miles, WP&YR climbs around 3000 feet with many turns and steep grades. While these grades go up to 3.9 percent, the turns are vary narrow at an angle of almost 16 to 20 degrees. This railway route passed through two major tunnels and many small as well as big bridges. During the construction of this railroad, engineers were able to build a cantilever bridge made of steel in 1901, which was the tallest constructed bridge of this category at that time. The total length of WP&YR route was 110 miles. A golden spike was driven in Carcross Yukon to mark the completion for construction of this railroad on 29 July 1900. This resulted in connecting Skagway port in Alaska USA with Yukon Whitehorse. This made it possible for connecting Northwest Canada with interiors of Alaska, USA. WP&YR company operations After completion of the project, the Railways Company started operating trains, docks, stagecoaches, buses, sleighs, paddle wheelers. In addition, the company began operating trucks, pipelines, ships, hotels and airplanes. The company provided range of infrastructural services that served well for the population of Yukon, while meeting the requirements of mining industry during that period. The company set a role model example of providing integrated services for container movement through interconnection of ships, trucks and trains. Low prices for minerals were responsible for the collapse of mining industry in Yukon, during 1982, which caused the suspension of WP&YR operations as well. However, in the year 1988 this railroad was again opened for tourism operations that catered to seasonal visitors, as it served around 38000 passengers during this period. Currently WP&YR operates on the initial 67.5 miles of the whole 110-mile route serving as very well known shore Excursion Company for seasonal tourists. This company carried around 390,000 passengers during May to September 2012. (History) (White Pass Rail – Bennett train journey Source: http://www.tripadvisor.in/Attraction_Review-g60877-d104383-Reviews-White_Pass_Yukon_Route_Railway-Skagway_Alaska.html ) The company promotes tourism in this region by providing experience of reliving through the Klondike Gold Rush, while enjoying the adventurous journey that marks the victory on nature. Claiming to be the most scenic journey in the world, WP&YR takes the tourists though cascade of mountains, waterfalls, tunnels, glaciers, trestles and gorges during the journey as it has many vintage cars that provide ultimate comfort to the passengers.(Company) The culture and populace of the region comprised mainly of Chilkoot Indians who were natives of this region, as they operated the traffic through Chilkoot Pass, which was at a higher elevation. However, after the gold rush the habitation and culture of this region changed with many gold seekers coming from Alaska region in USA and British Columbia in Canada, as well as San Francisco. Currently, WP&YR is part of the ClubLink Enterprises, earlier known as Tri-White Corporation and the company is based in Ontario Canada. The company has successfully managed to create another gold rush on this scenic railroad through promotion of tourism. Building of WP&YR The construction of WP&YR railroad took almost 27 months to complete, as it was finished in 1900 after starting the work in 1898. Since no modern day construction equipment was available in those times, the main tools to build this rail route were shovels and picks. Utilization of manual labor was the strong point of this construction as men worked hard to construct the rail line steep grades over the Coast Mountains. Blasting material and explosives were used in abundance during this construction, which also created danger for the men working on this site. Weather posed many challenges during this construction and labor had to work in cold regions under frost conditions, as sub-artic climate prevailed in this region. William Moore was a northern ship captain who could visualize the road or railway route through the unnamed pass to transport the prospectors seeking gold from the Klondike region. Accordingly, he constructed a small wharf in Skagway in the year 1987, while claiming that Yukon Pass route will be a better alternative to the all water passage from Bering Sea to Yukon River. During the year 1892, Surveyor General of British Columbia initiated a preliminary survey for constructing roads on the Yukon Pass. However, this survey concluded that it was impractical to build a route to Yukon interiors through the White Pass. Alternatively, the idea of route construction through Chilkoot Pass was explored. Since British investors were interested in this region, probably due to Klondike gold rush, civil construction engineers representing few financial investors from UK rejected the possibility of constructing a route through higher ranges of Chilkoot Pass. However, after surveying the region, they concluded that a railroad project is possible on the lower mountain ranges through Yukon Pass, as they did not visualize any major hurdles for constructing the route at lower elevations. As this report was presented to the syndicate comprising of British investors, they turned it down in disbelief. However, as the gold rush picked up vigorously, they started looking at the whole project in terms of revenue that could result from freight of incoming and outgoing goods and passengers from Yukon region. This also aroused interest of many countries to look into this prospect. Subsequently people representing various interests from three countries met in Skagway in 1897. This resulted in submission of around 20 applications to Canadian governments, both Provincial and federal, for getting approval to build a railroad over the White Pass to Yukon. Finally, the British investors syndicate announced in February 1898 their intention to start the construction of this railroad. The announcement indicated that the completion of this railway route from Skagway to Bennett Lake will take 90 days and the route will become operational in August 1989. The track gauge was planned to be narrow with 1.07 meters width, while the grade limit was set to 3 percent. Following this announcement, contractor from Canadian Railways was appointed for carrying out the required construction job. During the contractor’s meeting with financers, everybody agreed that the job would be completely labor intensive to counter the tough and rough terrain challenges. In addition, skilled and stable work force deployment was essential for completing the whole project. The people willing to work on this project in the sub-artic weather required passing the test to work under such hazardous and difficult working conditions. Initial cost calculations As British investors did their costing calculation well in advance, they estimated that the capital cost would be around $1,570,000 for constructing the rail line from Skagway to Bennett Lake. Working on the operational costs, the initial estimates suggested that it would cost around $ 203,000 for operating and maintaining the route, while the freight revenue could be around $3,300,000. The projected initial estimates hinted at a profit of around $3,000,000. Below is the rough map showing the WP&YR route (Image source: http://www.trainweb.org/outsidetherails/YukonRR2015/ ) Problems faced during construction The construction of rail route from Skagway to White Pass, a 32-Kilometer rail line, involved many engineering challenges, which were unknown until then. Apart from working through ice-laden cliffs, the winter months posed challenges to counter the hard cold, with temperature going sown to – 50 degrees C, along with long and severe dark nights with chilling winds blowing at high speed. In addition, the closest point for getting supplies was almost 1600 Kilometers away, in the Southern direction. As engineers looked for possible querying sites, they found the presence of broken granite in all shapes and sizes, on the eastern bank of this route. The slopes of the mountains were slippery which meant avalanches of heavy rocks during any attempt to chip off the material at the slope toe. Many positive and negative points came up during the surveys conducted for starting the construction from different sides. While eastern side had slippery slopes, it offered the advantage of gaining the grade reducing distance. The western side posed the challenge of getting steep grade due to the available terrain, although it provided superior rock footing. However, the search concentrated on finding the route that could offer curves of less than 16 degrees with gradients remaining to be not more than 4 percent. Accordingly, the survey team finally plotted the route of almost 32 Kilometers from Skagway to White Pass peak along the eastern side. Construction strategy Building railway track up to the White Pass While main consideration for labor recruitment was their ability to counter the natural hazards, these men also required to be highly skilled. Construction strategy was charted out which involved leap-frogging workers to work around main hurdles. Accordingly, the labor worked on different pieces of the terrain, while looking for a point to mark a breakthrough in the route. Doing the work in patches along the sectors within such breakthrough points would mean completion of trials on the particular patch with the possibility of having rough linkup. The construction of 27 Kilometers of this route was completed until mid-September, when 20 Kilometers of this track was operational. The cost of construction ranged very widely as some sections of this route were built at a cost of only $6000 per Kilometer, while the cost in some sections of rough terrain construction went up to $75,000 per Kilometer. This resulted in the average cost of construction from Skagway to the top of Glacier to be around $38000 per Kilometer. By mid November, Railway contractors had spent almost $1,200,000 on the construction of this route, while it provided employment to 1400 men. This effort had resulted in getting around 21 Kilometers of this line operational. Engineers found discontinuous grades between the summit and Skagway with blockages like large Canyons and large overhanging cliffs at many places. Building of a cantilever bridge over a canyon of 365 meters width was an engineering challenge. In addition, 37 bridges were built in the south of the summit with total length of 1250 meters. The construction also included building of snow sheds for protecting track in snow-slide prone areas along with erection of fencing for controlling the drifting of snow along the track. While the track completion up to the summit took five and a half months more, the effort paid rich dividends. The contractors completed building of railway track up to Bennett Lake in July 1899. The competing operations of Chilkoot Pass tramlines were also purchased by the railways, which resulted in multifold increase in income. While average earnings from freight and passenger revenue reached around $5000 per day, it amounted to almost $11,450 on 10 July 1898. Building from Bennett city to Carcross The passage of grade was possible by blasting and drilling through various rocky places of the lake to create many cuts. Horses and tripper carts carried the shattered rock to the numerous bays for making the embankments along the grade lines. Working on the rocks along the Bennett Lake shore proved costly, as it amounted to $150,000 per Kilometer against the estimated cost of $6000 per Kilometer. Positioning the ties for receiving steel rails was ensured through placement of spikes, with four gangs bringing the spikes for fixing with the tie. This meant placing 36 spikes for each rail and 72 spikes for every track meter. The ties received steel rails in this manner for positioning them at the speed of around 4 Kilometers per day. Carcross received the final spike on July 29, 1900 that opened the new transportation route in the North. (Lake Bennett Station in WP&YR route Source: http://www.trainweb.org/outsidetherails/YukonRR2015/ ) Constructing Carcross to Whitehorse Initially this was done after completion of rail track from Summit to Bennett Lake, while leaving distance of around 48 Kilometers from South end of Bennett Lake to Carcross for servicing by boats. However, later this section was also constructed. The survey along the route from Carcross to Whitehorse revealed large presence of permafrost under the surface that required blasting. The depth of Lewis Lake, which was around 15 Kilometers away from Carcross was reduced by the contractors which enabled the grade construction along this lake. Cutting of trenches along the 100-meter narrow ridge with sandy soil resulted in the erosion of such ditches due to the continuous water flow that was 3-meter deep and 30-meter wide. Finally lowering of water level in the lake by almost 21 meters ensured the grade construction along the lake. However, this required construction of two more bridges with 180 meters length and 15 meters height along the route. This meant blasting of frozen earth for setting the piles. In addition, the engineers had to complete the job before the setting-in of freezing season. As the WP&YR opened to regular traffic in August 1900, gold seekers used this route to travel from Yukon River to Dawson city. The 176-Kilometer long route of WP&YR is most scenic as it carries freight and passengers from Skagway to Whitehorse. The construction of this railway track was one of the most hazardous tasks of its time, with deployment of heavy labor enforcement and materials that included costly and dangerous explosives. In addition, the climate posed serious threat to the construction as it was delayed due to slow down or complete stopping of work during extreme cold months. The work force used to break away from the contractors due to this reason, which meant hunting again for skilled labor. The cost of construction also exceeded the initial estimates as it averaged to around $56,000 per Kilometer. This cost was almost nine times the prevailing construction cost of a railway track during that time. (Johnson) Engineering challenges While engineers and contractors of WP&YR faced several tough challenges during the construction work of this track, the toughest engineering challenge was the building of a cantilever bridge. An engineering news publication of 28 March 1901 has detailed this engineering feat, while reporting the progress of WP&YR construction. It required the construction of a specially designed steel arch structure bridge 400 feet long over a dangerous gorge. (Source: http://www.railsnorth.com/wpyr-cantilever_bridge-eng_news-1901.html ) As shown in the sketch above that was published in the engineering new article of 1901, the central span of steel arch was 240 feet with spans of 80 feet each on both sides. The side spans acted as anchorage arm, during the bridge erection work. Adjusting wedges held firmly the anchor rods, which were used to anchor the side shores, ultimately going to the concrete piers. The central span erection was done in two halves with each half connecting through a hinge at the center. This way each half span of this bridge acted as a cantilever at the center with the structure of complete bridge being based on pin-hinge design. Once the erection was complete, the side shore arms were wedged with shore ends that resulted in side spans to act as normal spans. This way the central spans acted as the true arch. The result was lesser deflection under live load conditions, in comparison to the deflection observed when the center arch would have acted as a cantilever having loose connection at the center. In addition, this met the conditions of getting pier reactions that are normal to slope. (Source: http://www.railsnorth.com/wpyr-cantilever_bridge-eng_news-1901.html ) Solid rocks housed the concrete abutments that supported the central span, while the solid rocks on the mountainsides took the end piers. The concrete work was done carefully, housing the anchor bolts as it progressed. The picture above shows the work of positioning the super structure. It started with the assembling of via ducts from the ends, while positioning each panel with an overreach traveler, specially designed for this purpose. This traveler held a four-spool engine meant for erecting the bridge, while the engine also acted as counter weight for the traveler to hold it down. The design of the bridge was based on the requirement of carrying the train live load of almost 27000 Pounds for every foot of rail line. This was in addition to the dead weight of two consolidation engines weighing around 96 tons each. Accordingly, the estimate for dead load was around 2000 Pounds per foot of rail line length. The bridge erection job took several days as only a few hours working was possible during those weather conditions. After erection of half the bridge structure, the traveler was moved to the other side for carrying on the work from that end. After final riveting of the bridge structure, it was put under load test with almost 270 tons of load passing along the entire bridge. This load comprised of a heavy snowplough and two similarly heavy engines. (The switchback) Building WP&YR in modern times Technology and building construction methods have undergone tremendous changes since 1900. The use of modern construction equipment reduces time and effort required to build projects even under difficult weather conditions. The locomotive loads have also reduced due to their innovative manufacturing techniques. Specialized work force is available for doing each section of the construction job. While qualified engineers are available, skilled labor can be arranged on permanent basis for working at the site. The erection of ropeways for carrying men and material to the site would ensure their safety, keeping the work force intact. In addition, dozers, earthmovers and automatic rock drillers like Teledyne hammering tools would ensure the job of carving roads out of mountains more easily with accuracy. The current labor force has many available options. Hence, it may be very difficult to get labor willing to work under those hazardous conditions. However, all weather camps can be built in modern times, which can ensure safety of the human work force as well as their permanency. The building material has changed since then, as steel bridges are lighter and easier to build in present times, compared to bridges made of iron. Use of cranes would ensure exact placement of all tresses and spans of the bridges with little loss of time, while using lesser work force. The railroads have undergone tremendous positive changes, as current locomotives are lighter, stronger and tougher meant to carry many passengers and heavy freight. This results in reduced live load carrying conditions for the rails. In addition, the two consolidation engines positioned on the cantilever bridge were too heavy and could find replacement with their lighter counterparts in modern times, thus reducing the dead load requirements for the structure. The modern railway, which involves excursion tourism, will have all the facilities for comfort of tourists. The coaches need building with interiors that suit the taste of modern visitors. The dining halls and pantry cars will have all the modern equipment required to keep food tasty and fresh, while serving hot and cold food to passengers as per their requirement. Hence, the pantry cars will be all-weather rooms with sufficient control of humidity and ventilation using modern control and monitoring equipment. The sitting area of the train coaches shall meet the requirements of different classes of passengers, while considering their comfort as ultimate aim of the operational company. Apart from above, the modern WP&YR project will incorporate all the changes that have taken place during the last century. This includes especially the technological advances in the manufacture of rail lines and locomotives. Some of these are briefly detailed below. Locomotives Modern WP&YR line will have the diesel or electric locomotives instead of steam ones, which wee used during 1900s. Railway mechanism While the breaking system in trains has seen continuous development, the latest is the electronic control of braking applications. As earlier trains plying on WP&YR route would require manual braking applications, the electronic advancement has changed it completely. This will facilitate running of the trains in a faster manner, while ensuring the safety of passengers. Accordingly, modern WP&YR line will make use of such electronic system that enables the simultaneous application of train brakes on all coaches, thus ensuring smooth train running without any possibility of derailment. However, locomotive power generators are required for working of this system. Modern railway line would use concrete cross-ties, instead of wooden ties. This will reduce the weathering effect on the ties while increasing their strength. The use of continuous welded rails in modern times has eliminated the problems occurring from rail segmentation that involved jointing by bolts. However, ready made rails of this kind would require long hauling trucks to transport them to construction site.(Brief History) The financial viability of such a project in modern times needs full investigation, especially when the Klondike gold rush period has been over since many decades. In the event of running WP&YR for excursion tours, after building it on modern lines may not be feasible. The cost of construction has gone up several times since 1890s. Hence, constructing this line now would require sound financial planning. Works-cited “Brief History of the Railroad”, freemountrailroad.com nd, web, 12 April 2015: “Company, WP&YR”, WP&YR.com, nd, web, 13 April 2015: “History, WP&YR”, WP&YR.com, nd, web, 12 April 2015: Johnson. K., “White Pass and Yukon Railway: A Cold region Engineering Milestone”, members.shaw.ca, nd, web, 12 April 2015 “The Switchback Arch Bridge”, Engineering News, Vol. XLV-# 13, 1901, web, 12 April 2015: Read More