History note

One episode in the Alaska Railroad's history was the use of Alaska Native slave labor (or labor at slave wages, I'm not sure which) to build the Anchorage-Fairbanks connections. I don't know enough about this to write anything on it, but this seems to be a pattern in American railroad building, and would be worth a mention if this is the case. Deirdre 19:29, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

More commonly, labor at very poor wages and conditions than truly legally slave, if I recall right (except no doubt in the antebellum South). The mostly Chinese or Irish workers that built the American railroads were legally free men, although sometimes of lesser legal status nonetheless. —Morven 02:53, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

Route extension?

The article states the ARR's route is between Seward and Fairbanks. Doesn't it actually continue (freight only) to North Pole? I'm not 100% sure so I didn't want to edit the article.

And then they're finishing building the extension to Fort Greely to serve the new missile launch site there, so we'll need to watch for that...pretty soon, someone'll get to edit it saying the ARR's met with the Canadian rail system! :-)

cluth 02:52, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)