Sagebrush and Sky


Relentless is the climb around Vendome Loop and the Rockies as the transcon continues its push west.  Above, the skies show signs of nighttime and the end of day, and the valley floor is increasingly left far below and behind.  The Great Northern crests the Rockies near Glacier National Park, with high peaks and evergreens that are draped in thick blankets of white during winter months.  But to the south, the Milwaukee plies a high desert with Butte still on the far side of the ascent.

This is full scale, serious mountain railroading.  Heavy rail marked these grades accompanied by the hum of hardworking traction motors and whoosh of cooling fans that pulled power from overhead catenary.  In later years, it was the deep throb of EMD 20 and 16 cylinder 2 cycle diesels that reverberate in your chest that ruled these grades.  It is too easy to forget the scale of what was done here.  The sage now encroaches all around the transcon and its assault on the Rockies.  Only where wheel ruts have packed the earth does the sage stop, and that seemingly with reluctance.  Nature is taking back what was once its own, and the signature of man is fading here just as the sky fades to black above.  Another quiet day is coming to a close on the Milwaukee's West with an appropriately sorrowful sky above and the quiet shutter click of a lone traveler on Vendome Loop.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Who do u get permission from to access this grade?
6/12/2018 01:54:00 PM
Anonymous said…
It's a good question. I've stopped and asked first each time, usually folks are pretty friendly and helpful when I've asked.
6/21/2018 01:28:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Place Where She Only Sleeps

Image
 Location: MP 1566.8 Grant-Kohrs Ranch Not far from Deer Lodge, headed west on the transcon we arrive here, at Grant-Kohrs Ranch where the Resourceful Railroad only sleeps.  Instead of empty right of way and scattered gravel, steel rail still binds the land in this place that is unlike the many other hundreds of miles along Lines West.  Across the Grant-Kohrs Ranch, on federal Park lands, the railroad only seems to rest and slumber while waiting for a new time to come.  Against the backdrop of Montana clouds that hold no rain, the catenary poles can still be found here standing against the endless skies.  The lineside poles that mark an era of railroading now gone still hold to the right of way.  It is not hard to imagine them whipping by outside the windows of an Olympian under the electrified power of a Quill or Joe.  Perhaps an XL Special could easily whisk across the scene above as though decades had never passed. Things don't seem so forgotten or beyond hope in a place like th
Read more

Rock-a-bye bye bye?

Image
There are footnotes to history and there are chapters. Dependent on your perspective, sometimes those footnotes deserve a book unto themselves. As the economy sagged in the seventies, railroads were hit hard. The East saw a general collapse in the form of Penn Central. As the seventies wore on, the PC would be combined with several other bankrupt roads to form Conrail, a government backed corporation who's sole goal was to save rail transportation in the eastern half of the country. Collapse worked its way through the western lines during these years as well. The Milwaukee Road pulled out of the West just over 30 years ago at the beginning of March. Bankrupt and reeling, its retreat to the Midwest would last only a few more years until its absorption by Soo Line. Its competitors in the West and Northwest managed to hang on, but healthy balance sheets were not to be found in the board rooms of the Cascade Green lines in those years. The Rock Island had a long flirtation with
Read more

Hidden in the Trees

Image
 MP1613.1, Ravenna, MT.  Substation 9  I once met the man who owned the old Substation at Ravenna.  In one of those strange twists of history, so I'm told, it was supposed to be torn down and sold for scrap as the bricks had value.  But the original sale didn't work, the scrapper never came and it remains standing near the howling roar of I90 to this day. I90 is just one part of  the U.S. system that moves upwards of 90% of freight by truck and highway.  But tucked in amongst the tall pines like a mirage, Ravenna looks out blankly towards that interstate and shouts quietly back about a different time. The year was 1972 and General Electric had put together a unique proposal: completion of the electrified railway portion of the Milwaukee Road.  In a formal proposal, offered by GE itself ("Proposal for the Completion of the Electrified Railway Operation of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company") via the Locomotive Products Department, the proposa
Read more