Lost Rail

One of my first adventures shooting the Milwaukee Road was several years ago on its breathtaking Bitterroot Mountain crossing. There are few other places where the Milwaukee's original vision and commitment are displayed so boldly. The shear scale of this mountain pass is humbling, made all the more so by the many trestles and tunnels that dot this mountain range. There were several routes considered by the Milwaukee as potential crossings into the Idaho Panhandle. The route up the Clark Fork had been claimed by the NP many years previous and the potential crossing into the Clearwater River valley posed problems as well. Although I've never come across this, I suspect the presence of the UP and NP in the form of the Camas Prairie Railroad may have weighed heavily in the decision to leave the Clearwater Route alone. In the end, it was reported to Milwaukee management that a potential crossing of the Bitterroots south of Wallace, ID showed the most promise and it was this r...

There are many places where the Milwaukee's Pacific Coast Extension seems so well kept that rails could be relaid today and trains could run tomorrow. Vendome, MT is one of those places. As the Milwaukee pushed west, it began its climb out of the Jefferson River Valley and up one of the famous loops of western railroading: Vendome Loop. On this stormy day in 2005 the old path of the right of way is still clear beneath the bridge of highway 41. The first of many sweeping curves begins the road's assault on the mountain grade as it heads toward the summit of the Rocky Range. Old AC power lines are still in place here and the surroundings look little changed from days when boxcabs pushed trains up and over the pass. This area on the east side of the Rockies lies in a rain shadow, and trees are sparse just as they were 30 years ago when the last dead freights fought their way upgrade. Old US-10 closely parallels the line and they both climb the slopes of the Rockies toget...

The sweeping compound curve of the Milwaukee's attack on the Belt Mountains is as obvious today as it was 30 years ago when some of the last trains passed this way. In better times, telegraphy and catenary poles dotted the right of way through here while Little Joes and Boxcabs plied the rails between them. At the crest of this, the first of five mountain ranges, the ancient substation at Loweth still stands watch over the now silent right of way. Cows quietly munch the grasses at its feet as they pick their way carefully through the foundations of the crew houses that remain here as well. Loweth, and the crest of the Belt Mountains, stand in the quiet Big Sky country of Montana. Here the rainy season is short and the summers are hot and dry. This is rattlesnake country. Track crews would often walk the line with snake sticks to fend off the wildlife. Even without the ghosts of an abandoned transcontinental railroad nearby, there is an undeniable loneliness to the landscape. ...

If nothing else, the decision to push the modest granger railroad, known at the time as the St. Paul Road, west to the land of the Pacific Northwest was bold. Very bold. In its path were two well established competitors in the form of the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern. Both had already laid vast claims to coastal traffic before the Milwaukee Road even considered its Pacific Coast Extension. Not only were there two established competitors, but between the Midwest and the Northwest lay several mountain ranges that would require enormous engineering and construction efforts to cross. By the time the route was finally selected, the Milwaukee would cross five ranges. Yet, in spite of these obstacles, the decision was made to go west and then undertaken with all practical speed and the best construction techniques available. To accompany the push west, the Milwaukee established an all out marketing blitz to encourage farmers and others to move west along its new lines. The bui...

Transcontinental. For some, the word conjures up visions of black and white photos at Promontory where the CP and UP met, linking the nation by rail. For others, its mention recalls the big cities of the west coast like San Francisco and LA - destination points of a country increasingly on the move. These are just a couple of things that might come to mind when thinking about transcons. What doesn't come immediately to mind for many (myself included much of the time), is what the transcontinental lines actually crossed to join the nation together. For every glistening end-point like LA or Seattle, there are thousands of small little towns clinging to the same steel link. Between these small towns are miles and miles of open space. Out in these spaces, time takes on a different meaning. There's no escaping the vast distances that these transcon lines crossed, nor the time it takes to move through them. As we journey the wilderness these lines traversed, little towns flick...

The last two winters that gripped the Milwaukee's system before the abandonments of 1980 were harsh. Leased units from the B&O and Canadian National were used to fill in for disabled Milwaukee locomotives in 1978. This was driven by the need to maintain some semblance of system fluidity. As 1978 wore into 1979 and the first traffic embargoes on Lineswest in October, 1/3 of the locomotive fleet was out of service. Ordered to reactivate the Western Extension soon after, the Milwaukee limped forward with strings of dilapidated GE locos and worn out GPs. The winter across the west was no less inviting than the year before and the best locomotives were forcibly held to points east, away from much of the transcontinental traffic. How sad, to ponder the "Electric Way Across the Mountains" in these final hours, in this final state. Along the logging branch to Bovill, ID, a few rails remain in the remnants of the yard that still remembers those last cold winters. A class...

One of the fixtures on prairie landscapes for the past 100 years has been the local grain elevator. In many places it is stationed next to a railroad line that has seen better, or in many other places, next to an old right of way that no longer hosts rails at all. While harbingers of efficiency in their day, these old elevators are quickly falling silent as they find themselves surrounded by huge shuttle elevators, capable of loading 100 car unit trains. The days of loading just a few cars at several small elevators along the route seems destined for history books and small photographs adorning a wall in some forgotten museum. In many places, this has already come to pass. Along the Milwaukee's Northern Montana Lines, this story is unfolding as I write this. Two giant shuttle loaders are being constructed north and south of the old line, promising to quiet many of the remaining grain bins on this old line. At Square Butte, the old Northern Montana line from Great Falls to Lewi...