"The Alaska Engineering Shops, Roundhouse and Yards in 1920."

I built this diorama for the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, Alaska History Gallery, in 1985. It is four feet deep and fourteen feet long, in HO (1:87 scale.) Mostly scratch-built of styrene plastic and wood, this diorama depicts the main shop structures of the Alaska Railroad during the construction era, at Anchorage, Alaska, about 1920.

Upon completion of the Panama Canal, most of the construction equipment; railroad locomotives and rolling stock, track rails, steam shovels and ditchers, machine tools and other equipment was shipped to Seward and Anchorage, Alaska, and construction of the Alaska Railroad was begun. Anchorage became the main base of operations and an extensive yards was laid out. Huge piles of parts and equipment were stockpiled there. I used many photographs to assist in creating a feel for these yards which were far larger than depicted in this model.