The Nenana news., 1922-12-21
PURCHASED NOME RAILWAY
 FOR PASSENGER USE ONLY


 The program of rehabilitation of the Seward Peninsula Railroad in- ciudes repairs to track and rebuild ing of bridges to permit the opera tion of 'pupmobiles" or small cars drawn by dogs for the transporta- ton of passengers but not fo- the operation of trains or for heavy freight haulage. according to a state men3 made by Col. ]. c. Gotwals, Engineer Officer of the Ala sl1a Road Commission. 4 heavy outlay such as would be required to restore ths the property to full railroad stan dard is not justified by conditions and would not replace the water transportation facilities available dur ing the open season of the year.
 The continuance of the road as a means of passenger transport, 1t was pointed out, would lengthen the oper ating season of the mines in the Kotzebue Sound district materially by giving operators and their em- ployees ingress and egress by the port of Nome. which is open to steamer service longer than the more northerly ports.
 Colonel Gotwals in outlining the plans for rehabilitation of the road, also gave brief history of 1t. He said
 'The recent purchase of the Nome Shelton Railroad by the Territory is at once an extension and preserva- tion of the system of overland trans por.ation on the Seward Peninsula.
 This narrow. gauge railroad was constru :ed nearly 20 years ago and serves 9 number of creeks in the vicinity of Nome and is the channel of entry to the old workings of the Kougarok and is used to some ex- tent in addition for transportation from Nome to points on Kotzebue Sound. The railroad was operated up to 1910. After the latter date considerable use was made of the track for the transportation of per sons and freight using light flatcars or gasoline speeders. Dogs and sometimes horses were used to draw the flatcars. This use made of this privately owned railroad virtual public road. During the high prices prevailing for scrap steel in the war years a number of other rail roads on the Seward Peninsula were torn up and shipped outside for scrap. This threatened to be the fate of the Nome7Shelton road. Meanwhile a number of bridges or the old road. had washed out and re- quest came in through a number of years on the Alaska Road Commis- sion to repair these structures, which requests were rejected as the rail- road wah privately owned. Finally the road was sold out at auction
 1920 and was purchased by the p; - neer Mining Company. .
 That company offered to sell Q the Territory in accordance with a bill passed by the Territorial Legisla- ture and finally did so withs cer- tain additional rights granted to the Territory at an adjusted price of S24,000. The price was in any case a nominal one and in view of the materials incorporated in the road. Consisting of about 5000 tons of steel rails and 100000 board feet of Douglas fir lumber in very ex- cellent state of repair. or in view of the cost of replacing the structure with wagon road of the same length The main purpose directing the purchase was to prevent the scrapping of the road and then to permit the application of public fund to the repair of the same and the replacement of the bridges. The re- mobilization of this road for the chief service it performs that is the extension of the network of sum mer roads and trails through the Kougarok mining district ana final " to the shore of Kotzebue Sound.
 There Is no desire to do more than to make the road excellent and passable for the kind of traffic just described-that IS. by ''pupmo-