Alaska News

Alaska Railroad train emergency stop avoids summer campers on tracks

KTUU reports an Alaska Railroad track closure on Thursday was due to an emergency stop initiated when an engineer saw a large group of children "spread out along three-tenths of a mile of track" near Bird Point, off the Seward Highway just south of Anchorage.

The Alaska Railroad's Spencer Glacier train was traveling about 40 miles per hour when the train's engineer spotted a large group on the tracks, nearly 50 children and a dozen adults.

The train stopped about 500 feet from the group. No injuries were sustained.

Camp Bear Valley, part of the Bear Valley Community Association, was the group involved. The director of BVCA said "the children were never in danger" but the association "did not approve of the activity."

Regardless, railroad police issued the BVCA's director a reckless endangerment citation.

Read more from KTUU, here.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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