Alaska Man Monday: Cabooses, Parking Meters, and Exploring

Back home now in our own Susitna Valley digs, but from last Thursday to last Saturday, my wife and I spent some time exploring parts of Alaska we hadn’t seen, namely Isabel Pass and the area between Delta Junction and North Pole. And, yes, we stopped in North Pole at the famous Santa Claus House to pick up some trinkets for the grandchildren.

There’s some beautiful country between Delta Junction, which is officially the northern end of the Alaska Highway, and Fairbanks. The route follows the Tanana River much of the way, then passes through some rolling, hilly country with spruce and birch timber dotted with lakes. Beautiful country. You’ll see some footage in this week’s video.

Moving right along: If you’re interested, the city of Wasilla is auctioning a caboose. Yes, really.

After a months-long delay for a legal review, the city of Wasilla plans to open the public auction for the Nunley Park caboose Oct. 13.

The caboose auction, which will be linked from the city's website, will be part of a broader surplus sale used by the city to offload unneeded equipment and items confiscated by the Wasilla Police Department, city officials said.

The auction was intially targeted for July.

My grandson Moose is upset he couldn’t be here for that. He’s six, and utterly fascinated by trains and big trucks. Anything with a motor, he likes, but he’s really, really into trains.

There is, as usual, a catch: If you buy the caboose, you have to move it.

Bids for the caboose will start at $1, but the winner must pay to move it, officials said. It comes with about 38 feet of railroad track, which must also be removed.

Brought to Alaska in the 1990s as a party room marketing gimmick at the Wasilla McDonald's, the once-yellow caboose was repainted red with white "Wasilla Railroad" lettering and purchased by the city from a private party for about $10,000, according to city documents.

The caboose sale and removal is part of a planned overhaul of Nunley Park that became a flashpoint early last year when city crews cut down a swath of trees in the park to make way for improved lighting.

That isn’t the first time I’ve heard “move your caboose,” but it’s the first time in quite a while.

Alaska Man score: 5 antique cabooses.

This, on the other hand, isn’t so great; I’ve noted over the years how Anchorage, where almost half the population of the state lives in that city and its suburbs, is falling prey to some of the problems that plague other American cities. In Anchorage, the latest is thieves breaking open parking meters for the change therein.

In 2025 EasyPark spent nearly $1.5 million to purchase 1,500 new parking meters for downtown Anchorage, according to Anchorage Community Development Authority Director Mike Robbins. Since the beginning of this year, he said, 480 of those meters have been stolen or destroyed by thieves, intent on getting the coins inside.

Robbins said at first thieves appeared to be following a TikTok trend that showed people how to pop the cover off meters to access the coinbox. In response, he said, EasyPark retrofitted every meter with stronger locks.

But it didn’t work, after that, Robbins said, thieves started taking the whole meters, sawing off poles, using a sledgehammer, or in one case, pulling them right out of the ground with a truck.

Robbins said it’s baffling because the average meter doesn’t have much money inside since most people use credit cards, maybe $30 if a thief is very lucky. On top of that, he added, destroying a meter is considered a Class C felony crime.

The notion is that the city may go to card-only parking meters. It seems more reasonable to me to catch some of the goblins committing this vandalism and slap some of those Class C felony charges on them, pour encourager les autres.

Alaska Man score: Nil. Get after it, Anchorage.

Now, let’s see some of that scenery I mentioned.

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