Big Time Railroading - Seward Style - Big time has not been associated with Seward in decades, at least not since the heady days of the pipeline construction. Freight operations in Seward since then have comprised of nothing more than a few coal trains a week and the very rare pipe or lumber train. All that changed this winter, however, when Northland Services pulled out of Whittier and began sailing into Seward every other week during the winter months when Cook Inlet is iced over and they can't make the journey direct to Anchorage. With a five year contract in place they should be fixture every December through March for the foreseeable future. It's nice to see some additional life breathed into the south end of the ARR mainline which in the winter months has pretty much solely been the domain of export coal trains. In this southward view we see a pair of SD70MACs on the right sitting on the Jesse Lee main at the north end of Seward yard just south of the airport road crossing. They arrived the prior evening on a 7000 ft container train and were set out while their third sister to the left is going about her chores spotting and pulling the docks so Northland can strip the southbound containers and backload with northbound loads destined for points north in the 49th State. Note: the photographer is a railroad employee with permission to be on the property and was wearing all required PPE while taking this photograph.
