Avalanche in Alaska, January 31, 1998

A slope loaded with wet, heavy snow avalanched in the mountains south of Portage over the weekend, sweeping three loaded coal cars off Alaska Railroad tracks and closing the rail route to Seward. The derailment dumped some 300 tons of coal at a spot called Tunnel, 12 miles south of Portage and about 50 miles north of Seward. The avalanche took out 200 feet of rail. The original 66 car train was split into two 33 car sections near Spencer (10 miles south of Portage) to allow the train to climb the steep grade to Grandview. With 6 inches of fresh snow on the tracks Saturday morning, the engines had trouble hauling 33 cars, so the train was split again...leaving 16 cars at Tunnel, while 17 were pulled to Grandview. Before engineers could return for the remaining 16, the railroad's avalanche expert told them to stop because the area was unsafe. "It's not great to leave railroad cars in a slide zone, but it's worse to endanger lives by sending in people to remove the cars" said avalanche forecaster David Hamre. Workers bringing a locomotive from Portage discovered the slide at 6:15pm Saturday. It had pushed the first three cars off the tracks, nearly burying the middle car in snow. The avalanche also piled up against the next six cars, but they remained on the tracks.