Train to Nowhere


Location:  Martinsdale, MT
Milepost:  1359.7 miles from Chicago

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Marching West in Time

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  Not far from Ravenna and MP1614 the transcon lofts itself over the Clark Fork River above.  The river has been a frequent obstacle to the Resourceful Railroad and which has followed it carefully for many miles since crossing the Continental Divide.  The Northern Pacific is only yards away here, and even I90 follows the carefully plotted route between mountain ranges. The photo was taken years ago when the railroad had only been gone for 20 years. Back then, 20 years seemed like a lifetime. Now two decades seems simply like a chapter - or maybe two.  This crossing of the Clark Fork reminds me that one can revisit a bank along a stream, but the water is always different.   This is the march of time and the days that mark it:  the sun rises and the sun sets, always progressing its way across the sky like a champion running a race while the world changes beneath.  It rose that day 20 years ago on an abandoned railroad left to history and the works o...
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