The White Pass & Yukon Route is the narrow gauge (3 foot or 914mm) rail link between Skagway, Alaska and Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory in Canada, a distance of 107 miles (172km). The summit of White Pass marks the US/Canadian border at an elevation of 2,865 feet (879m). Because the distance from Skagway at sea level is only a little over 20 miles (32km) the grade is a relatively steep 3.9 percent. The WP&YR was built between May, 1898 and July, 1900 to facilitate access to the Klondike gold fields replacing the arduous foot passage known as the Chilkoot Trail immortalized in the famous photo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilkoot_Pass#/media/File:Miners_climb_Chilkoot.jpg) of miners portaging their supplies in September, 1898. Photo was taken from an outbound summit excursion passing another train returning to Skagway.

Submitted to the January, 2018 Contest Without Prize, theme "Lokomotiven (Locomotives)" as entry #41.