Located at the border between Alaska and Canada, in the southeast Alaska panhandle, the White Pass & Yukon is now a tourist railroad. Until 1982, it was one of the last narrow gauge (3ft between the rails) railroads still in operation in North America, providing a 110 miles long rail-link between the port of Skagway, Alaska, and the city of Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory (Canada). The railroad gets over the coastal range through White Pass (elevation 2,885ft), marking the Canadian border, by a 3.9% grade from Skagway. The line crosses the northwest tip of British Columbia in a tundra-like landscape, in the middle of lakes and mountains, and then reaches the Yukon Territory.

    This international railroad, isolated from any other railroad, finds its origin in the 1896 Klondike Gold Rush in Yukon Territory. It then managed to survive through the twentieth century by adapting to the traffic needs of this isolated area. It pioneered containerization and was one of the few American narrow gauge railroads to undertake a dieselization as soon as the fifties.