Alaska's trains: ride the rails for a trip to remember.

• Author: Pardes, Joan

In today's ultra-modern world, travelers making their way across Alaska have several options on how to transport themselves from one place to another. From backpacking to cruising, The Last Frontier's transportation infrastructure covers everything from the practical to the romantic. For some, the romance of travel is embodied by a boat ride, for others it's the open road (or no road at all) and for many, the height of romantic travel begins and ends with a train ride. Here in Alaska, travelers who seek the romantic notion of "hitting the rails" have two options-both of which offer modern comforts along with the nostalgia and history of doing business in America's far north for close to a century.

THE WHITE PASS & YUKON ROUTE RAILWAY

In the late 1800s, building a railroad in the Alaska wilderness that climbed almost 3,000 feet in 20 miles didn't seem possible, but thanks to American engineering, British financing and Canadian contracting, the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway went into operation in 1900 to transport gold seekers and their goods to the Klondike during the Gold Rush. With its 110-mile track, a steel cantilever bridge that was the tallest in the world at the time, cliff-hanging turns, and two tunnels and numerous bridges, the railway was considered an engineering feat that employed tens of thousands of men and used 450 tons of explosives to come into existence in July 1900.

Today, the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway (a narrow-gauge railroad) is considered an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark and shares this designation with the Panama Canal, the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. Along with being an engineering pioneer, this railway innovated the inter-modal (ship-train-truck) transportation movement of containers that is now a commonplace practice in most of the world.

After serving Canada's Yukon Territory for close to a century, the railroad suspended its operation in 1982 when the Yukon's mining industry collapsed. Six years later, the railroad transformed itself into a tourist attraction to what was then Alaska's fledgling visitor trade. That summer, 37,000 tourists climbed aboard the historical train in Skagway, a small town located at the end of Alaska's famous Inside Passage. Last year, the same railroad transported close to 405,000 passengers and is the state's most popular shore excursion for cruise ship passengers.

"Last year was our biggest year on record," said Michael Brandt, White Pass &amp...