By the Shores of 16 Mile Creek
Further east than the Yellowstone and more imposing than the Missouri, the Milwaukee started its journey west along the shores of a vast lake. How different from where we find the Milwaukee's mainline here. Carl Sandberg called Chicago, "The City of Big Shoulders." Others know it as the Windy City, and many a cold and wintry day has felt the devastating chills of driving Lake Michigan winds. The Resourceful Railroad knew Chicago as Milepost 0. When this series of posts started in Eastern Montana, at MP 1080, how different the landscape looked. The badlands of Montana and the Yellowstone River provided the gateway to the abandoned Lines West. Then from the arid Badlands to the Musselshell river and the more fertile ag country to the west. Now, in the midst of the run to the Rocky Mountains, the railroad finds itself along the shores of a different body of water. Unlike the Yellowstone River crossings of giant steel bracings and...