BEEP - CHOO CHOO - HONK

Yesterday was a day of unique adventures. First a 5 hour ferry ride in almost total fog and then a ride through one of the most unusual tunnels I have ever experienced. I have been through this tunnel once before back in 2006 when G and I took a train from Fairbanks, AK to Whittier, AK as part of a Land/Sea Alaska cruise. (NO, the boat did not come up on the land, that's just how they refer to touring AK by train and then boat. Silly!) Any way. . .  the train travels through some beautiful scenery but the last 10 minutes are the most amazing yet no one realizes it. You must get from one side of the mountains to the other in order to reach the sea. For decades gold miners climbed up and over these massive mountains but then in the very early 1940's someone decided there had to be a better way of doing this so in 1943 this unique tunnel was opened. The tunnel is two and a half miles long, which is not so unusual BUT it is only one car/truck/train width wide and high. The size restrictions are no vehicle higher than 15 feet or wider than 11 feet can get through. It IS large enough for a train to fit but when you think about it, trains really aren't that huge in height or width. There are probably some tractor trailers that would not fit although there are large motor homes driving through. To put it in perspective picture a hamster running through one of those large tomato juice cans. It is not an experience for the faint hearted or anyone who is even mildly claustrophobic . Get would have freaked and would have needed to be sedated and locked in the trunk for the 6 minutes it takes to go through this thing.
At each end of the tunnel there is a large parking area where cars, trucks, mobile homes and other various vehicles that are towing other various vehicles such as boats get to line up and wait for their turn to drive through. Once every hour the traffic is cleared coming from one direction and the opposite end of the tunnel is allowed to drive through. BUT . . .if you are as lucky as we were there will ALSO be a freight train waiting on the tracks next to you and it gets to go through before you. THEN you have to wait an additional 40 minutes while they clear the smoke from the train out of the tunnel with massive vents hidden GOD only knows where inside this amazing creation.
When it is your side of the mountains turn a massive traffic sigh alerts your parking lot to start filing through the teeny tiny opening in the mountain. From the parking area the opening in the mountain doesn't look big enough for a Volkswagen but since you just saw and entire freight train get swallowed up you know your little motor home should and will fit. So when it is your turn the red light in front of your lane turns green and off you go saying 20 Hail Mary's and an Our Father just to make sure. One of the most unique things about this tunnel is that when you are heading toward the entrance you suddenly realize you are merging with the rail road tracks that are now imbedded in the surface of the road so that the journey through the tunnel's one lane is done ON RAIL ROAD TRACKS !
Once inside it is dark and unlike any tunnel you have EVER been through. There are no fancy cement or tile walls like the Lincoln Tunnel in NYC, this is ALASKA so you are actually driving through ROCK.  The walls are rock, the ceiling is rock and the floor is rail road tracks in a road. It is wet from the water dripping through the mountain and back in 2017 they had to close the tunnel because of falling rock. (This fact was not known by me before hand but after when I researched this man made gerbil tube I realized that those metal plates on the ceiling about mid way through were probably put there to prevent any more avalanches.