The Alaska Railroad By James Davey, Railfanning The Alaska Railroad While Working in Alaska Options

[Coast Starlight]

To All:

As some of you may have heard I got a job working for Princess Cruise Ship Line in Alaska; a seasonal job with employee housing working from May through September. While there I had the opportunity to video and photograph the entire length of the Alaska Railroad round trip between Anchorage & Fairbanks; Anchorage & Seward; as well as Anchorage & Whittier. Quite the amazing opportunity. I got to film the Alaska railroad all the way to the interior as well as all along the gulf coast getting shots of the trains with the Pacific Ocean in the background.
Well I have finally had time to edit and upload all of my Alaska Railroad footage to my youtube account.

Here are three links.
Link 1: This is the opening seen to my Alaska RR DVD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsfuyRQXL0s...nel_video_title

Link 2: This is a train ride that us employees got to take prior to guests arriving to the lodge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER7vveT9k2Y...nel_video_title

Link 3: The rest of my Alaska RR vids can be found on my youtube account at this link:
www.youtube.com/CoastStarlight11

BTW: I do not work on the cruise ships themselves. Princess Cruise Ship Line owns a number of lodges throughout Alaska as part of people's Alaska Cruise/Land tour. They provide employee housing and meals at the lodge. I was working at the lodge just out side of the town of Talkeetna, Alaska. On my off days I got to hang out in Talkeetna and since the Alaska RR runs right through town I got to railfan. I did request a few days off while I was there so I could grab a rental car to do the majority of my video shoots.

Just for the heck of it here are a few other links

This is a recruiting video showing what its like to work for Princess Cruise Ship Line in Alaska for a season:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d3zPVNkQPg

This is an official video off of the official Princess Cruise Ship Line youtube account about the lodges in Alaska (you kind of get an idea of where I worked)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6twl6QZ9g4...nel_video_title

This is yet another video off of the Princess Cruise Line youtube account. This is a video in general about cruising to Alaska on Princess with a little more about the lodges.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsIUGuVbhmI...nel_video_title

This is the lodge that I worked at May through September:
http://www.princesslodges.com/mckinley-lodge.cfm

James Davey

[SeanK97]

Nice work on the videos James, looks like you had a really good time on the trip. I did watch a couple extra vid's (the links you emailed me a few weeks back) just trying to figure out how to get a couple of the kids here interested and wrangled into taking a job there. I am guessing if there is no internet service available on the train or the ship it's likely never going to happen, especially with two of them here, they are positively addicted to telling the world of their shenanigans etc.

[Coast Starlight]

Nice work on the videos James, looks like you had a really good time on the trip. I did watch a couple extra vid's (the links you emailed me a few weeks back) just trying to figure out how to get a couple of the kids here interested and wrangled into taking a job there. I am guessing if there is no internet service available on the train or the ship it's likely never going to happen, especially with two of them here, they are positively addicted to telling the world of their shenanigans etc.

Sean, good to her from you.

The lodge I was at was located in the absolute middle of freaking no where so desolate that they had generators on property to provide electricity and they had to provide their own power and water.

However on the lodge property they have some kind of cell phone tower thing so you can use your cell phone and also if you bring a lap top you can use internet. They do provide computers in the employee lunchroom so you can access the net during your time there. The computers in the employee lunch room do not have USB plugs so the only way for me to send pictures to friends and relatives while I was up there was to send them cell phone pictures. One of my co workers was nice enough to let me plug my camera and USB cord into her lap top computer and I was able to fire off a few digital pictures from my camera to friends and relatives that way.

[Coast Starlight]

I got word I will be headed back to Alaska yet again working full time seasonal from about the first week of April through about the first week of October, dang near 7 months. This time I will be at the lodge located at the main entrance to Denali National Park and once again an employee of Princess Cruise Ship Line. They should be lining up my flight with in the next few weeks. This time I will probably be flying into Fairbanks instead of Anchorage.

This is where I will be working; Princess Cruise Line's "Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBpUrEetEEQ...xiQt9H8uw9yn05Z

If time allows I will probably get more shots of the Alaska Railroad while I am up there.

[SeanK97]

Wonderful news, how about sending a bit of Old Man Winter our way? Keep us posted!, okay maybe me:)

[Coast Starlight]

Wonderful news, how about sending a bit of Old Man Winter our way? Keep us posted!, okay maybe me:)

There has been no snow on Donner Pass at all this winter which is just totally strange. I moved to Nevada in year 2004 and have never seen a "snow'less" winter on Donner Pass.

[SeanK97]

That's not really so unusual considering I live in Michigan and we just now had our 2nd SMALL snowfall, the first was gone in 48 hours, same for second. Last year we already had almost a foot of the white stuff.

[Coast Starlight]

By now there should have been several snow storms that have passed through my area dumping knee deep snow but so far nothing. There was a slight dusting the other day, maybe 1/4 inch of snow fell during the night but it instantly melted once the sun hit it.

Last year they had to bring the rotary snow plows over Donner Pass to clear the tracks since the snow was so bad and now a year later Donner Pass is bone dry.

[Coast Starlight]

Dang it!

Some how my post doubled.