Journey to Alaska Episode 17
Join us in this episode where we meet up with some good friends and hop aboard the Alaska Railroad for a fun day-trip to Hurricane Gulch. Stick around for the end of the video and we’ll give you our #1 money-saving tip for traveling Alaska.
There’s a new adventure around every corner so don’t forget to join in on our Alaska Summer on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook! We appreciate you following along with us.
Journey to Alaska Episode 17 | All Aboard! The Alaska Railroad!
All Aboard! The Alaska Railroad!
Bucketlist item ✔ Ride a train in Alaska! I (Tina) have always wanted to ride a train, so yesterday we hopped on the Alaska Railroad with friends for a ride up to the Hurricane Gultch from Talkeenta, Alaska.
We had a fun time despite the rain and cloud cover over the mountains. We would ride it again, in fact, it would be awesome to go the other direction towards Seward down on the Kenai Peninsula.
The Alaska Railroad stretches 470 miles from Seward in the south to Fairbanks in the north. We just did a small portion of the railway, The Hurricane Turn, 1 out of 6 routes you can take. The trip took 6 hours round trip, so we packed a lunch and some drinks and enjoyed the scenic view along the way.
Beautiful Fireweed!
Curry, Alaska
One-stop along the way to the Hurricane Gultch from Talkeenta was Curry. Now a ghost town, Curry used to be the stop midway to Fairbanks back in the day when they used steam engines. There are old antique train cars you can walk around in taking in the history that was once there.
Curry is about 22 miles north of Talkeetna. In 1922, this remote train station in the Alaska wilderness became a briefly popular luxury resort destination.
Curry was plagued by a series of unfortunate events leading to its ultimate demise. A fire in 1926 destroyed the engine house and power plant. The engine house was later destroyed by fire in 1933. The construction of a larger hotel in Denali National Park in 1939 drew visitors away from Curry. –wikipedia
7 Random facts about The Alaska Railroad!
- The Alaska Railroad was built in 1902
- On March 27, 1964, the Alaska Good Friday earthquake caused nearly $30 million dollars in damage to the Alaska Railroad, with the greatest impact-focused south of Anchorage
- Some of the same equipment used to build the Alaska Railroad was used in the construction of the Panama Canal.
- The Alaska Railroad is the main railroad in Alaska. It is owned by the state government of Alaska.
- The Alaska Railroad’s first diesel locomotive entered service in 1944. The railroad retired its last steam locomotive in 1966.
- The Simpson family rides the Alaska Railroad in The Simpsons Movie.
- The Hurricane Turn is one of the last true flag-stop trains in the United States.
Alaska Money-Saving Tip
Some Alaska outings can be pricy so we saved up for this EPIC Alaskan adventure knowing this was one of the many bucket list adventures we hoped to do.
To save a little money we purchased the Alaska TourSaver Book online.
We recommend this book, and no we are not being paid to say this. This book is chalked full of BOGO offers that saved us a ton of $$ and allowed us to check off a few bucket list items during our visit to Alaska!
Check out our photo gallery below for the rest of our photos of our fun day on the Alaska Railroad!
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