Equipment: Pile Drivers

Because the Copper River & Northwestern laid a lot of initial trackage on pile trestles that were filled in, as well as maintaining trestles over wide alluvial deposits, it had a number of pile drivers. Some were rail mounted, while others were on skids. All seem to have been home built, with some fairly substantial like the one below in Cordova during the construction period:

The one below could be an upgraded version of the one above, or something entirely new. It's being pushed by a 70 class loco in later years.

The same unit is shown below, also in later years:

The one below looks like it's been disassembled for transport. It has either a crude wooden structure or a tent covering the hoisting machinery, with parts of the driver itself laid out on flat cars. In fact, the whole assembly seems to be mounted on skids and loaded on the flat car. This is a construction-era train at Tiekel, the end of track as of 1910.

In later years, it appears that at least one pile driver was permanently located at the Copper River bridge at Chitina. This regularly washed out and must have needed constant work.

Two skid-mounted pile drivers working toward each other. The one nearest the camera seems to be the skid-mounted one shown in the photo at Tiekel:

An early view at the McCarthy trestle. The pile driver seems to be the larger one in the photos above.