Push for tracks chugs forward

PALMER — What’s it going to take to restore rail service to Palmer?

“The (Alaska) Railroad did come back with a number of $1.8 million,” said Greg Gusse, who is heading up Palmer Colony Express Train, a group that organized with the goal of restoring rail service to the city. “A private contractor came back with an estimate of $300,000.”

The discrepancy? Gusse said it’s the difference between the types of service each estimate envisions.

“What the railroad wants to do is upgrade us to a Class 3 freight line and what we want to do is maintain our classic tracks and 15 mph designation,” Gusse said.

The freight line could carry trains through town at 35 mph, he said, but the 15 mph line is more in keeping with what Palmer wants — passenger service for tourists and visitors from Anchorage.

“That’s all we want. We would prefer if trains, at least through the center of town, never went over 5 mph,” Gusse said.

He said that the tracks would be a significant piece of city infrastructure.

“We figure we can offer enough things for 20,000 people a year to ride the train to Palmer. This is big stuff, it’s not taking Palmer or Wasilla dollars and pushing them from one to the next, it’s making Palmer a rail destination, which is one of the biggest draws in the world,” he said.

He said the group’s request now moves to the Alaska Railroad Corp. Board agenda for Sept. 17, but he thinks the situation may be resolved first. What exactly that resolution might look like, Gusse didn’t want to say on the record.

The idea for the project sprung to life during a time when a previous city administration was working to tear up the tracks. Instead of preserve the tracks, the city opted to implement what was then a part of its Urban Revitalization Project and create a green space and trail to the Alaska State Fairgrounds.

Gusse said that creating such a trail, obviously along a different route, is actually one of three goals of the Palmer Colony Express Train. The third? Creating a memorial to Alaska Railroad workers near the downtown depot.

“I personally think that’s a very important thing that these people worked for us for a century be recognized,” he said.

In the longest term he said Palmer could also be home to a lot more railroad history. What if the old Matanuska Maid warehouse was remade into a museum documenting the railroad’s history?

There’s a team in Wasilla restoring an old train engine. Could there be a place for that in Palmer, too? Engine No. 557, which a nonprofit is working to restore, used to make the Palmer run all the time. People emigrated here onboard trains. The city — and in fact much of the Valley — owes whole chapters in its history to the construction of the railroad.

“We wouldn’t have a Palmer if it weren’t for some people coming through in 1916 and putting some tracks in,” Gusse said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.