Lost Rail

The path back to 16 Mile Creek and America's final transcon has led south out of the small town of Ringling and up and over small passes where cattle roam and the road is single track.  On this little path, it is easy to feel alone and lost - even if just for a moment.  The mountains that climb around a sole traveler seem too high, the dirt road too infrequently passed, and there are none of the sounds that mark civilization: no car horns, no cell phone coverage, no slamming doors - just all-encompasing quiet. In some ways this makes it easy to see the land the Milwaukee built through in its push west. Pushing on and through the doubts, past little pieces of Americana along the way, the road empties into a wider valley where, once again, the Resourceful Railroad lies in pieces.  Far across the valley floor, a brace of wooden trestle bridges loft the smooth right of way between fills on timbers that seem too spindly for the likes of a Little Joe.  At their feet i...

The challenge was first posed by Mr. Eric Gagnon, over at Trackside Treasure .  It was taken up by several others, that include some other Lost Rail friends: Oil-Electric and Confessions of a Train Geek .  Robert over at Oil-electric passed the challenge directly to me. The challenge :  share five photos that visualize my introduction to and development as a ferroequinologist.    This is a difficult challenge: actually choose 5 photos (I have included 5.5) that show my journey as a rail "enthusiast."  Perhaps this is made easier for me only because many of the formative pictures are still kept by my parents so I am left with a smaller selection.  My choice of 5 spans the decades and leads to a future second installment, picking up where this series leaves off.  Picture 1:  CPR 374, Vancouver BC ~1982 CPR 374 was the first locomotive to pull a train into Vancouver.  The date is pre-1983 when she was removed from her park sett...

In the days before the Milwaukee's retrenchment to the Midwest, small roads like this Maudlow Road were the connections from one isolated outpost on the transcon to another.  Over modest passes, through fields where cattle wander aimlessly without fencing, and beneath the big skies above.  In good weather the roads were passable, in more difficult times of year they were treacherous.  The Milwaukee Road itself must have been the preferred means of access to the lost places like Francis that exist west of Ringling and within the traces of 16 Mile Creek. This is the American West in many respects: isolated, alone, dangerous, and indescribably beautiful.  On this June day, in a picture now well dated, the little road from Maudlow continues to survive and meander its way from one small settlement to the next.  If there are specific times or places where one can fall in love with the West, this must be one of them for me.  ps - Speaking of the West, th...

Most often, this site considers the "real" Milwaukee Road in images that record what it left behind.  On occasion, however, the focus drifts to the world of a re-created Milwaukee Road in the form of models that bear the Resourceful Railroad insignias. Recently, my own Wheat Line (Warden, WA to Marcellus, WA) hosted its final run because of an imminent move to a larger scale.  The outbound run out to Marcellus is just a caboose hop, with the final cars being pulled from the line as the train works its way back to the transcon at Warden (all locations simulated ... poorly). Unlike the real Wheat Line, 100 ton hoppers were allowed as far as Ruff, WA in this version.  For the most part, however, the 40 foot grain boxcars still ruled the branch line, resplendent with rib sides and Billboard lettering. For your enjoyment, the documented final run of the Wheat Line: Milwaukee 534 and 5054 leave the mainline at Warden and head north and east out along light rail: ...

 Leaving the small outpost of Ringling, the Resourceful Railroad travels through large tracts of private ranch land where visitation can be difficult.  In the midst of these wanderings, the railroad runs through infamous locations like "Eagle's Nest" tunnel and into the 16 Mile Creek canyon.  For now, Eagle's Nest is a missing element to my wanderings of Milwaukee miles.  In similar fashion, the old substation remains and cattle platforms at Francis are notably missing as well, but perhaps that blank can be filled sometime in the future. Leaving Ringling by road, one turns South to a meeting with the railroad once again at Maudlow, while the railroad heads West and then Southwest.  With the Rocky Mountains ahead, the road to Maudlow reveals exactly where the transcon must head, and the crossing that it will face.  The single lane dirt road through these hills and canyons makes no effort to traverse the relatively flat confines of 16 Mile Creek....

Distance was a word with which the Milwaukee Road was familiar.  In fact, Western US railroads in general crossed exceptional distances that their Eastern counterparts would never match.  The old NYC "Waterlevel" mainline from New York to Chicago was 961 miles and the PRR counted its "Broadway" route as 908 [1].  The longer Erie (Hoboken to Chicago) was 976 [2].  By contrast, the Great Northern line to Seattle was 1782 miles, and started in St. Paul [3].   1392.8 miles into its own push west, The Resourceful Railroad rolled through Ringling and below a captivating expanse of Big Skies.  Ringling itself was named after John Ringling, one of the brothers of the Ringling Bros. Circus who had purchased land in the area [4].  Small yards were at one time placed at Ringling for interchange with the White Sulphur Springs Railroad.  This line diverged to the north, serving the small town of White Sulphur Springs.  In later years, the line...

Those Magnificent Quads  were a distinctive feature of Milwaukee electric locomotives.  Even now, the remaining Little Joe in Deer Lodge sports a lighted quad as part of the static display of Milwaukee Road motive power.  The Joe rests north - south, 180 degrees (and a few city blocks) out of place from the mainline it ruled.  The headlight shines only on low power, and the dimly lit scene before it never changes.  It is a far cry from the glories of times past when high power lumens cut through miles of dark tunnels or charged up the formidable grades of the Rocky mountains.  But the Quad exists still today, and even in static form, is something quite special. 1100 miles to the east, another set of quads yet roams.  The Iowa Traction Railroad runs the quad arrangement on its own electric locomotive, #54.  54 was built in 1923 by Baldwin Locomotive for the Southern Iowa Railway [1].  Interurban lines once criss-crossed the Midwest, Io...