Princess Tours

Princess Tours is an Alaskan sightseeing passenger car service owned by Princess Cruises and operated by its Rail Division. Princess Tours runs ten cars a day (five north, five south) from Anchorage to Fairbanks on the Alaska Railroad, stopping at Talkeetna, Denali, and occasionally Whittier. Each train consists of five cars and is staffed by a crew of 32 people.

A Princess Tours train in 2007.

About Princess

Princess Tours, a division of Princess Cruises, is responsible for the operation of Alaska Land Tours and the land portion of Cruisetours. Founded in 1972 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the company offers a wide variety of Alaska Land Tours in conjunction with Princess' Alaska cruises.

The largest cruise and tour operator in Alaska, Princess Tours gives travelers the opportunity to combine a Gulf of Alaska cruise with the interior of Alaska. The “land” portion of the cruisetours include Anchorage, Denali National Park, Copper River, the Kenai Peninsula, Prudhoe Bay, the Arctic villages of Nome and Kotzebue and the Canadian Yukon.

Princess Tours also owns and operates five wilderness lodge properties and hotels, a fleet of motorcoaches and luxury rail cars, known as Princess Rail.

Princess rail tour

Traveling daily between Anchorage and Fairbanks from May through September, the Ultra Dome cars feature the largest domed windows ever built for a rail car,[1] dining salons, and the only open-air outdoor observation platforms on the Alaska Railroad.

Equipment

Thomas G. Rader started the cruise operation “Alaska Tour Operators” in 1982. The operation was renamed “Tour Alaska” the following year in conjunction with the purchase of four ex- Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad ("Milwaukee Road") Super Domes. These cars held 60 passengers each and featured fine dining on board.[2]

In 1986, P&O Princess Cruises purchased Tour Alaska, and in 1988 replaced the Super Domes with four new Ultra Dome cars, rebuilt by Rader from Pullman Gallery Cars which had been used on the San Francisco-San Jose Peninsula Commute by Southern Pacific until 1985.[2][3][4] These are the cars in use today. The cars came in pairs and shared a kitchen which cooked for the dining rooms downstairs. In 1992, Princess Tours commissioned two new cars to be built, which were introduced for the 1993 season. These cars, as well as the cars built in 1996 and 1999, are all self-contained and can operate independently from the others, unlike the earlier cars.

Railcar classifications
NumberStyleSeatingBuilt
7080Coach/Kitchen88/321988
7081Coach/Obs84/321988
7082Coach/Kitchen88/321988
7083Coach/Obs84/321988
7084Coach/Kitchen88/321992
7085Coach/Kitchen88/321992
7086Coach/Kitchen88/321996
7087Coach/Kitchen88/321996
7088Coach/Kitchen88/321999
7089Coach/Kitchen88/321999

References
  1. Lerten, Barney (March 17, 1988). "Old rail cars become 'Trains of the Century'". Mohave Daily Miner. Retrieved 14 February 2015.
  2. Zimmermann, Karl R. (2007). The GrandLuxe Express: Traveling in High Style. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34947-7. OCLC 123136805.
  3. Combs, John (21 May 2016). "Princess Rail Cars". Alaska Rails. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  4. Moore, Jody (2005). "Princess Tours 2005 car refitting, part 1". TrainWeb. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
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