The morning rush hour in Skagway: two trains at the station are ready for departure.
During the seventies, freight tonnage on the White Pass & Yukon was still high and the railroad kept a small passenger service with mixed trains as well as a few tourist excursion trains. In 1969, a huge mining complex opened in the Yukon (Anvil Range Mine) to exploit the large lead and zing deposits of the area. The WP&YR undertook an important modernization of its physical plant to handle the large amount of ore from this mine to the port of Skagway.
Track was improved to run trains with a higher axle-load and several bridges were also reinforced or rebuilt. Particularly, the steel cantilever bridge near White Pass summit was abandoned because it was too light for the heavy haul ore trains and a new section of track was built including a bridge and a tunnel to go around the canyon that the steel cantilever was bridging. More powerful new locomotives, this time ordered from Alco's Canadian subsidiary (Montréal Locomotive Works), were pressed into service to help the General Electric diesels. New and heavier ore cars were built, able to haul 50 tons, a new ore dock was layed out in the port of Skagway to handle them and to transfer directly ore from the unit trains to the ore ships.
Three MUed 6-axle Alco heading a train to Skagway, north of the shops.
At that time, the White Pass and Yukon was hauling about 450,000 tons of ore a year and 70,000 passagers (already mostly tourists). Besides this, it operated intermodal trains, unit oil trains to Whitehorse and carried general freight. Trains hauling empty ore cars up to Whitehorse could be one hundred cars long. In the opposite direction, ore trains to Skagway were 60 to 80 cars long, trains rating 2,00 tons or more were frequent and were pulled by up to 5 diesels. Rather impressive figures for a narrow gauge mountain railroad.
Unfortunatety in 1982 lead and zinc prices plummeted around the world and Anvil Range Mine was forced to close down. The White Pass & Yukon abruptly lost its main customer and had no alternative but to cease all rail operations. The WP&YR's parent company survived owing to its non railroad-related businesses (pipelines, trucks, activity in the port of Skagway) and the railroad was shut down, but not dismantled.
Three GE diesel on the point of one of the morning trains bound to White Pass.
In 1988 however, tourism was becoming the predominant industry in the area, and the White Pass & Yukon reopened as a tourist railroad exclusively, operating only during summer season and on the mountaineous section between Skagway and White Pass, some trains continuing on to Bennett. Today the WP&YR operates about 20 diesel locomotives and 60 passenger cars, and runs several trains a day. During high season 4 daily trains are scheduled but when cruise ships stop in Skagway, extra trains often run and on busy days, sometimes over 10 trains depart Skagway. Most of these trains are diesel powered, but a weekly train to Lake Bennett is steam powered (using rented Consolidation #40 during 2001 season). Each year from May to September, the White Pass & Yukon carries about 300,000 passengers (most of them guests of the cruise ships stopping in Skagway), making it one of the most well-patronized tourist railroads in North America, despite its remote location in Alaska.
