ALCANEX

An ALCANEX Great Northern passenger consist at the CRD in 2006

The Copper Rail Depot features an overhead-indoor and elevated outdoor model railroad system in "G-scale," which is commonly known as "garden scale," roughly 1:24 (1/2 inch = 1 foot).

The original layout was the "Chitina Local Branch of the Copper River & Northwestern Railway," Chitina, CRNW MP 131 to Kennecott, CRNW MP 195, including McCarthy, MP 190. This is the party which dominates the bar and beer garden. However the two trains assigned to this section, often referred to as the Phase I segment of the CRD model railroad, are seldom run.

Emphasis is now on the Phase II segment--ALCANEX--Alaska-Canada Northern Expo Consolidated Railways System. This is an imaginary railroad line based on the "what if" question of tying together the railroad systems of the continental United States to Alaska-- a historic dream of many forms which goes back to the latter 19th Century when gold was first discovered in the Klondike, setting off a series of gold rushes in both the Yukon Territory and Alaska.

My "what if" presumes that a gas line is built through Canada and that a rail line is constructed with it to facilitate construction of the gas line, thus finally realizing the dream of connecting Alaska to the U.S.A. My original railroad lines for this Phase II expansion of the model railroad system were to be the Great Northern and the Alaska Railroad.

I needed a model town for this new project. This would be the focal point of the Phase III outdoor layout. My choice was the mythical town of Cicely from Northern Exposure. I have written extensively on why I chose Cicely, but principally it was because Northern Exposure was the television series which seems to have popularized Alaska, even though the place is fictional.

The filming for Northern Exposure was mostly done in Roslyn, Washington. Roslyn is a small town on the east side of the coastal range whose origin came about because of extensive deposits of coal. The Northern Pacific Railway developed an extensive coal mining system there in order to exploit the coal resources to power their steam engines before the turn of the century.

The CRD Cicely model represents elements of Cicely of Northern Exposure and historic Roslyn as a coal-mining and NP Railway town.

I have since added other railroads to the Phase II ALCANEX system, including the Milwaukee Road, which ran through Cle Elum, just a few miles south of Roslyn; the Canadian Pacific, which connects Alaska with the U.S.A. mainland through B.C. and the Yukon Territory; the Santa Fe Railway; AmTrak; and, finally, the White Pass & Yukon, which will connect Phase II ALCANEX with Phase III Klondike Mines Railway.

In 2009 the Phase II line was run to the lower level immediately below the model town of Cicely in order to create a railroad storage area. This became known as Cantwell--one of several Alaskan localities which are frequently mention in the Northern Exposure (NX) television series. Also often mentioned was Sleetmute. This is represented on the model by West Sleetmute Junction to the west of Cicely and by a new level opened up in 2010 which is located in the White Pass extension section that connects Phase II with Phase III-- Klondike Mines Railway.