Lost Rail

There's a term used to describe abandoned industrial sites:  brownfields.  Across the expanse of the United States these places exist as reminders of hustle, industrial might, and a growing country flexing its industrial muscles.  In Pittsburgh the old steel mill sites dot the river banks that make the city famous.  In Birmingham, it's old iron works and furnace sites.  The remains of old industry are scattered out across the Midwest rust belt with empty fields or rusted and mangled machinery dotting old sections of small and large cities alike.  The West has its share of brownfields too.  The city of Spokane has extensive stretches of land once occupied by a bustling railroad yard that stretch from near downtown west to the canyon that marks the city's western edge.   A massive trestle spanned the Spokane River here, carrying trains from the shared UP/Milwaukee Road trackage across the chasm and into the heart of the city.  The leftovers t...

In the years that have spanned the Milwaukee Road's "retrenchment" from the Pacific Coast, there have been more than a few questions posed.  There have been more than a few answers offered.  There have been more than a few arguments started, and more than a few facts misinterpreted.  The common thread is the quest for answers to the question, "What happened out there?" Although it was Lines West that seems to be the most memorable scar from the Milwaukee tragedy, perhaps because of its seemingly inherent value, all across the Milwaukee empire things were not well.  Travel times across the Midwest were high, slow orders abounded.  Harsh winters reduced the locomotive fleet to the point where Canadian National and Baltimore and Ohio units made guest appearances.  Out on the Pacific Extension, worn U-boats old GPs trudged through the snows and dilapidation of what was left of a modern engineering marvel. I don't pretend to have the answers to the questions...

     Ye who love the haunts of Nature, Love the sunshine of the meadow, Love the shadow of the forest, Love the wind among the branches, And the rain-shower and the snow-storm, And the rushing of great rivers Through their palisades of pine-trees, And the thunder in the mountains, Whose innumerable echoes Flap like eagles in their eyries;- Listen to these wild traditions, To this Song of Hiawatha! From:   "Hiawatha," Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 'Fleet of foot was Hiawatha.'  America's Resourceful Railroad had a stable of Hiawathas that ran through the Midwest; in the shadows of the forest, out across the rushing rivers.  In late June of 1947, the Milwaukee added a transcontinental Hiawatha to its passenger streamliners:  The Olympian Hi'.  Initially pulled by iconic FM diesels, later by Little Joe electrics on the mountain passes of Montana, and then sets of streamlined boxcabs and rebuilt Bi-Polars.   Armour yellow E units marked...

Often, it is the things just below the surface that make a history or place interesting.  Old stories of personal sacrifice or challenge that make up the big history are often quite special.  These things lie just below the surface of what is normally seen, weaving the fabric of history into what is now casually observed as "current." The piles of rock and filler that abound in the picture of Deer Lodge, MT lie atop one of those intriguing old stories.  In the distance, a few poles jut into the sky between the trees.  They are a reminder that this is a special place.  This is a place where America's final transcontinental railroad pushed west toward the mountains in the distance.  This is a place where Little Joes pulled time sensitive Thunderhawk and XL Specials up for crew changes at the nearby depot.  They rolled out beneath those old poles, from between the trees and into the rails of the Milwaukee's Deer Lodge yards, now home to large piles of D...

One of the things that often strikes me is the cost of growing up.  We move from a child's simplicity to an adult who is full of stress, strain, and the burden of too much information.  From relaxed summer days of fun and few cares to gripes about heat and humidity, the endlessness of yard work, and the ever present journeys to and from our 'real' jobs.  As another summer unfolds in the Northern Hemisphere, allow me to journey back in time to a few fond memories of summers many years ago.  Perhaps it is the lack of adult work loads and stress that makes these memories stand out and seem so pleasant.   I haven't always been an avid photographer.  My real love for the hobby started in high school, but my first pictures come from the summer of 1990.  As with many summers through the mid 90s, I spent a couple of weeks in Lafayette, IN with my grandparents.  That summer an old Brownie camera was unearthed and film scrounged from a local photography sh...

As the days drag into weeks, oil continues its rush from the Gulf floor to the ocean above. The politicians point fingers, the residents along the Gulf Coast question response times and commitment, and the coastline waits for the slick to make landfall. Amidst the chaos and noise, the economy of the region hinges on the effects and success of the spill containment. Oyster beds dot the area, shrimp fishing is common place. These are the economic realities that coexist with the environmental impacts. The world economy thrives on readily available oil products that move cars, heat homes, even form the backbone for the many plastics that are relied on every day. In 2008 the U.S. Department of Energy reported that 28% of the U.S. energy use was consumed by the transportation sector alone [1]. Much of the transportation sector consists of internal combustion engines operating on the Otto or Diesel cycle. The staggering consideration is that many of these engines are only 35 to 40 % ef...

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...