White Pass and Yukon Route

The White Pass and Yukon Route (WP&Y, WP&YR) (reporting mark WPY) is a Canadian and U.S. Class III 3 ft (914 mm) narrow-gauge railroad linking the port of Skagway, Alaska, with Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon. An isolated system, it has no direct connection to any other railroad. Equipment, freight and passengers are ferried by ship through the Port of Skagway, and via road through a few of the stops along its route.

The railroad began construction in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush as a means of reaching the gold fields. With its completion in 1900, it became the primary route to the interior of the Yukon, supplanting the Chilkoot Trail and other routes. The route continued operation until 1982, and in 1988 was partially revived as a heritage railway. In July 2018, the railway was purchased by Carnival Corporation & plc.

For many years the railroad was a subsidiary of Tri White Corporation, also the parent of Clublink, and operated by the Pacific and Arctic Railway and Navigation Company (in Alaska), the British Columbia Yukon Railway Company (in British Columbia) and the British Yukon Railway Company, originally known as the British Yukon Mining, Trading and Transportation Company (in Yukon), which used the trade name White Pass and Yukon Route. The railroad was sold by Clublink to a joint venture controlled by Survey Point Holdings, with a minority holding by the Carnival Corporation & plc parent company of the Carnival Cruise Line.

The railway was designated as an international historic civil engineering landmark by the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering and the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1994.