Alaska Railroad SD70MAC and GP40 on bridge

''Princess Tours'' is an

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

n sightseeing passenger car service owned by

Princess Cruises Princess Cruises is an American cruise line owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. The company headquarters are in Santa Clarita, California and is incorporated in Bermuda. As of 2025, it is the List of cruise lines#List of cruise lines by size, s ...

and operated by its Rail Division. Princess Tours runs ten cars a day (five north, five south) from

Anchorage Anchorage, officially the Municipality of Anchorage, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Alaska. With a population of 291,247 at the 2020 census, it contains nearly 40 percent of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolita ...

to Fairbanks on the

Alaska Railroad The Alaska Railroad is a Class II railroad that operates freight and passenger trains in the state of Alaska. The railroad's mainline runs between Seward, Alaska, Seward on the southern coast and Fairbanks, Alaska, Fairbanks, near the center of ...

, stopping at Talkeetna,

Denali Denali (), federally designated as Mount McKinley, is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of above sea level. It is the tallest mountain in the world from base to peak on land, measuring . On p. 20 of Helm ...

, and occasionally Whittier. Each train consists of five cars and is staffed by a crew of 32 people.

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, 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. 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 The Peninsula Commute, also known as the Southern Pacific Peninsula or just Peninsula, was the common name for commuter rail service between San Jose, California, San Jose and San Francisco, California, San Francisco on the San Francisco Peninsu ...

by Southern Pacific until 1985. 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

References

External links

History of the Princess Rail Cars

{{Alaska railroads Alaska railroads Princess Cruises