Loweth and the Belt Mountains

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. The railroad has indeed left its share of hauntings through here though. The right of way still sports occasional track side signals. Now with their lenses shot out, they seem hollow and sad. As the wind gently blows through this hot summer day, the faint electrical hum of a substation can be heard as well. It's eerie to imagine it comes from the old brick structure with its broken windows and gaping dark interior. Its source, however, is across the two-lane asphalt road where a more modern substation sits behind a decidedly modern chainlink fence. Loweth is one of those places where it's easy to feel small and lost.

On this summer day in 2003, there are no friendly Milwaukee crews to wave to or substation operators to chat with. The struggles of westbound freights up the compound curves is lost to the past. As this was never helper territory, their struggles were at times quite heroic. This was mountain railroading -- the roars of superchargers and traction motor blowers would have been amazing, especially compared to the silence that rests here now. To the west of the summit the line begins its decent toward Ringling and 16 mile canyon. A lone ABS signal peaks through the cut in the photo as the giant Rocky Mountains lay waiting in the distance. This is the next crossing the Milwaukee would have to make on its way to the Puget Sound. Beautiful on this day, but tall and challenging. Here we leave the Belt Mountains behind and set our sights, just as the Milwaukee did, on the Rockies that lie beyond.

Comments

Robert in Port Townsend said…
What a lonely place ... without the railroad.
5/27/2008 12:14:00 AM
LinesWest said…
Lonely indeed. Like a lot of places that this old road left.
5/27/2008 03:37:00 PM
Unknown said…
I grew up in Loweth where my dad was a substation operator from the early '40's to the Milwaukee's demise. I recently visited there and felt that same desolation that the author speaks of. What an insightful description the author has given and the picture of the substation is indeed, poignant. I'm curious as to what this author's connection to Loweth is.
7/07/2010 03:39:00 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

Buried

Image
 Location:  Near Bear Mouth, MT 1603 miles west of Chicago The daylight is fading away in the photo above - in the space that has been cut by the Clark Fork River.  Here one finds the Milwaukee heading to Bearmouth, MT, making its way steadily west.  Still marking the path is the former NP (Montana Rail Link at the time this photo was taken) and not far away, empty tunnels that lie in unchanging darkness.  The searchlight signal of the old NP shows a high green along the steel rails still present, a lonely sentinel in a sad and lonely place. The signatures of Milwaukee were fading even during the time of this photo, now itself 20 years old.  The gravel road preserves what was the right-of-way but telegraphy and other markers were quickly falling even then.   Traveling along I90 is now a trip through forgotten history and gravesites.  Where bridges once crossed the old transcontinental, fill has taken their place.  No more insulator panels that guard the roads above from the electrical
Read more

Summer Skies and Fading Paint

Image
On the way out of Deer Lodge, the Milwaukee Road rolled west by a fuel rack and two depots that bounded it north and south.  To the south of the rails was the freight depot, shown above and below.  Note the telegraphy pole that rises through the roof at the west end.  One can scroll back through the decades online and find it, always present, rising right through the eve of the old freight house.   Those decades weren't kind to the old house either.  The white paint has washed and faded away, the wooden shingles are increasingly missing.  When these pictures were taken in the early 2000s, the end was very near.  To the north of the former main, the passenger depot has taken on a new life as a church, but no such rebirth has come to the old freight house.  Under the hot Montana sun, the remaining paint continues to fade away and soon the house, the loading dock, and the telegraphy pole that always seemed to rise through the roof will vanish from under these blue skies. To the north
Read more