Headline        RIDING THE FROZEN RAILS FROM PASSENGER CAR, THE WHITE MILES OF WINTER ROLL BY  
Run Date        2/18/1993      Day     Thursday       
Page    F1     Section         Lifestyles     
Edition         Final  
Illustrator     ILLUSTRATED BY LANCE LEKANDER  
Story Byline    By SANDI McDANIEL Daily News reporter  

      Was morning ever this redolent, watercolor white? Never noticed. Were trees this secretive, whispering so? Was the ragged, wild brush so uncombed? TX: In summer, the Alaska Railroad's passenger cars are packed with tourists en route to Denali hikers and bikers and sojourners all headed across the Interior in noisy buoyancy. In winter, this is a lonely trek through ice and snow. A runaway sled ride streaking blue and yellow, hastening by abandoned mines, coach sheds, beaver dams, flag stops and map points with names like Fish Lake, Kashwitna, Gold Creek, Chulitna and Hurricane Gulch. Today is Sunday, and there are a half dozen people riding the one-coach train the 356 miles of track from Fairbanks to Anchorage. In 12 hours, we will ease into the Anchorage station in this weekly run. One whole day to kill hurtling along in a hunk of throbbing metal. To brood about mountains and hidden creeks where swaths of menthol blue are slashed in white ice by rushing water. One even half of the Earth's rotation to watch a long, silent movie about winter. To indulge in shameless introspection. To compose a loose treatise on the purpose and individuality of trees. To celebrate the loving of trains. Who can resist this eager vessel that whisks us over fresh terrain? That makes us presents of new cities, new nations. That returns us to those we love. Sexual? Very. Pulsing, panting. Trains desire motion, spending themselves in a race on open territory. They live on distance. They eat up miles like hungry drifters. They work for food. A train is ambitious, knowing its destiny and moving toward it in straight lines. We passengers, on the other hand, are made pensive and passive by sensory overload. Hypnotized by speed, for us, there is no past or future, only the fleeting present in scenic flashcards, rushing by, reminding us that time is passing. There. A caribou buck with springs for legs sinks deep in soft snow, caught, befuddled by our harmonica chord. How haughty we are to waken forests that sleep, to drone with arrogance through others' private chambers. Is there a snowy owl catching her day nap? A pixie-eared lynx contemplating his dinner? How rude to intrude. But we press on. Schedules to meet. There are human beings out in this frozen wildness, waiting by this path of tracks, stoics, guessing what time the train should pass. No other place in America can you flag down and board a speeding train. It slows impatiently by a lonesome grove. A man, woman and two harnessed dogs climb aboard. The dogs have blue eyes. The woman shares her food with them. She seems glad to be among strangers. "Type of the modern, emblem of motion and power pulse of the continent," wrote Walt Whitman to a locomotive in winter. "Thee of the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining . . ." Why, trains are the vanguard of civilization, said President Warren G. Harding when he drove a golden spike into the tracks at Nenana in celebration of a completed Alaska Railroad in 1923. Nowhere is that more evident than along these white miles. We chug on along tracks, steel and animal, but no footprints. Few humans live here, but it's easy to spot the highways of animals. Prints of varying size and depth crisscross the frozen lake beds. Moose consider the train bed their personal route through deep snow. The big, lumbering creatures die like crazy in winter, blindsided by the speeding engine. Near Mount McKinley, the sun warms rock face to melted gold. What was that? Ptarmigan. Winging by serrated peaks. Taiga, says the train milepost book, means "land of little sticks." The taiga in Alaska is the region marked by stumpy black spruce just below the tundra line. The spruces stand like stout matrons. Birches are slender girls. When mountains wear white caps, evergreens pull on thick coats of snow. And who could blame them? Almost dusk now. A red fox with painted black feet shoots away from the train and into an open field. Her heart must be pounding. Her coat is backlit by sunlight; she races like a torch in the snow. You could live your whole life and not see that. One hour from Anchorage, young passengers drift together to play cards. A stage hand has sneaked and drawn dark curtains over the day. Here is Wasilla, its garish bright shopping centers giving us a start. Lights race along a busy highway. To breathe the frozen air, some of us layer on coats, fling open the coach door and step out back onto a vibrating steel deck. The tracks and the wilderness fall away to the rhythm of a Cajun rub board player. To the left, house lights. A silhouette in the kitchen. Above, a page of storybook stars. We rock like a cradle. Inside the coach soft talk. Is someone playing a mandolin? IF YOU GO: Mid-September through mid-May, the Alaska Railroad operates passenger service between Anchorage and Fairbanks only on weekends. The train leaves the Anchorage station at 8:30 a.m. Saturday and arrives in Fairbanks at approximately 8 p.m. Hours are the same for the return trip on Sunday. Cost is $70 one way and $140 round trip. Children and senior citizens ride for half price. Bring a picnic basket. There is no dining car in winter. Dress warmly or bring a blanket. It can take a while for the car to warm up in the morning.