No visit to Anchorage
would be complete without stopping by the large railroad station at the
northern edge of the downtown area. This
station, along with the adjacent shops, offices, and freight yard, constitute
the headquarters of the Alaska Railroad.
My son James worked on this railroad for several years before
transferring to his present employment on the White Pass and Yukon Route. Despite
this change, however, he retains fond memories of the Alaska Railroad, and
these include meeting one of my former shipmates.
Captain James Edward James, Jr., originally of Manteo, North Carolina, sailed as second mate aboard the freighter Rigel in the summer of 1979.[i] I was then a brand new third mate, and I had the interesting and entertaining experience of sailing with him. To call him a character would be the height of understatement. This was a middle-aged man who sported long and tangled gray hair with a matching tangled beard, wore a winter coat and hat in the summer heat, smoked horribly stinky cigars that dripped ashes on his clothes, threw money in the water to appease the gods for good weather, and had a ready pithy witticism to suit every occasion. More importantly, he was a highly competent seafarer and recognizably an expert in celestial navigation and nautical astronomy. Also, as he told me, he was a veteran of the United States Coast Guard and a graduate of Harvard University. He read Greek and Latin to a considerable degree and was conversant in several modern European languages. Aboard the Rigel with him, I sailed across the Atlantic, spent the summer crisscrossing the Mediterranean, and then returned to Norfolk. After that, he went his way and I went mine. We never met again, but I heard news about him through the fleet grapevine, including that he had successfully passed all the examinations and had received the unlimited Master’s license.
Thirty-five years later, in the winter of 2014, my son James met James James aboard the Alaska Railroad. He was then living with a female companion “off grid” in the forest north of Anchorage, a region without roads, airfields, electricity, or plumbing, and accessible only by trains that stopped when hailed by people along the track. James James would catch a southbound train at a trailhead in the woods near his home and ride it fourteen miles to Talkeetna, the nearest town where he could purchase food and supplies. When his business there was finished, he would return home on a northbound train.
Having heard sea stories during his childhood and adolescence, my son James came to wonder if this passenger James James was the same man that I had sailed with many years previously. His good-humored but eccentric behavior aboard the trains seemed consistent with my descriptions of him aboard ship. Always traveling with a gun, he willingly rode in the baggage car because firearms were prohibited in the coaches. Always tight-fisted with cash, he laughingly engaged the conductors in endless debates over the fare structure. Boarding the train and later disembarking from it always involved a clown show of off-beat antics and charades. Much of this nonsense, better appreciated by watching it than by reading about it, was filmed and featured in the television series Railroad Alaska.[ii] James James thus became a star of the Alaskan interior as well as a star of the sea. And my son was privileged to be a part of this!
One day, after consulting with me about this unique passenger, my son James identified himself to James James as the son of a former shipmate and told him specifically that I had sailed with him aboard the Rigel to the Mediterranean and back in 1979. On receiving this information, James James became awestruck and thoughtful. He stared off into the distance for a moment, and then quietly remarked, “Wow. That was a lifetime ago.”
Thirty-five years later and thousands of miles away, the past had caught up to the present. It was one of those sobering moments that provided much food for thought but left little to say. Both James and James James continued on their railroad journeys, but not for very much longer. Sadly, James James became ill and eventually died of lung cancer in August of 2016. Known long and well by many of the railroad employees, his passing seemed to mark the end of an era, and he was both fondly remembered and sorely missed. As my son James wrote to me:
His reputation lives on at the Alaska Railroad. Current and former employees who knew him
continue to talk about him. Among newer employees,
he lives on as a character of legends. His
debates on the fare structure and antics on boarding and disembarking are still
talked (and laughed) about. He even
comes up at union meetings!
The only time I spoke to him and he did not have a
ready response or witticism of some kind was that time I mentioned the Rigel. I don’t think he ever expected his past to
catch up with him on the train! That response came only after several seconds
of thoughtful silence. He must have
liked and remembered you, though, because he and I got along great after
that. He always asked how “everyone in
New Hampshire” was doing and was happy to hear good reports. He was always friendly with all the train
crews, but he never asked anyone else about their families.[iii]
I’m very thankful that my son had this unique experience of meeting and traveling with one of my former shipmates. It gave us a common ground that transcended the ordinary father-son relationship. On further reflection, though, what were the chances of such a meeting ever taking place? How could anyone possibly have predicted this? I’ve never placed any stock in such long-shot coincidences; they always seemed the stuff of pulp fiction, mere contrivances that never happened in real life. But this one proved that sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.
Now, whenever I go to Anchorage, I stop by the Alaska Railroad Station downtown and smile inwardly as I think of my son James and my former colleague James James riding the rails together. I don’t have any photographs of James James, but perhaps these two can serve as substitutes. In the first, a train such as the ones he rode reposes at the downtown station before departing for points north on Friday, April 25, 2025:
[i] I wrote about
James James previously in “Money for the Gods,” published in February, 2011.
[ii] My son James and
his passenger James James were featured in several episodes of Railroad
Alaska, which was broadcast between 2013 and 2016.
[iii] Extract from an email sent by my son James to me on May 27, 2025.