Lost Rail

It was May 23, 1961 when the final Olympian Hiawatha, train 15, departed the station at Missoula, MT. Located at MP 1641 and several miles beyond Ravenna, the Milwaukee carefully follows the Clark Fork River through the city as it winds through different compound curves in and out of town.  These images were taken in the mid-2000s, captured on Kodachrome and a trusty Pentax LX. The final #15 can be seen here , courtesy of the Montana Historical Portal and Montana State Library. There were no electric locomotives that day and seemingly no Skytop Lounge at the rear.  The Superdome endures to the final run, however, and acknowledges the status of these passenger trains as a symbol, even to the end.  Looking East from the station, the path of old overhead wires is obvious The Clark Fork under Big Sky blue  And the end for the Olympian Hi was earlier than many. Other western railroads maintained their top passenger train until the dawn of Amtrak and often hoste...

  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...