Lost Rail

It's a perfect summer day in 2004 as the Milwaukee's former mainline pushes west past Jefferson Island (MP 1474).  On this early summer day, the grasses are still mostly green, the sky a Kodachrome Blue, and the line-side poles still mark the way west along with remains of overhead catenary.  The Rockies await just a few miles beyond, shrouded in a purple haze that hides their splendor and size.  Beneath these big skies, even the Rockies seem small. Only 15 miles separate these two photos.  The first, near Jefferson Island at MP 1474.  The second, near Vendome, MT at MP 1489.  The former path of the transcon is clear even in the shifting sands of years that have long passed by.   The Milwaukee Road ventures into one of the rain shadows of its path West here.  On the east side of the Rockies and Pipestone Pass, the land is parched for much of the year.  The vast State of Montana resembles more of a high desert here than the rich ...

"In Montana they have blizzards that freeze cattle standin' in their tracks.  An' horses freeze to death.  They tell me that a drivin' sleet in the face with the mercury forty below is somethin' to ride against"   Light of the Western Stars , by Zane Grey There are hundreds and hundreds of miles that now lay behind us in this journey to the Milwaukee's West.  Alcazar is located 1467.5 miles from Chicago's Union Station, along these shores of the Jefferson River, winding along with the remains of the Northern Pacific.  Like many of the haunts that have rolled by in the run west, it is a name with no place - lying both in the shadows of the Rockies and the fading memories of a Nation.   Here the Rocky Mountains loom ever closer and rise ever higher.  They are aloof and unattainable but ever present and mighty.  The Continental Divide lies ahead and so does the inevitable throttle-up that will hoist tonnage to the top.   In 20...

The days long past - those were days of strength.  The winds blew the grasses of Montana plains and hot winds raced down the rain shadows of the Rockies in those days.  Overhead the skies were blue to the horizons or clouded over with the power of racing summer storms.  Between the heavens and the earth were the unbroken wires that made America's last Transcontinental Railroad unique in the lexicon of US transportation. The hum of traction motors could be heard rolling tonnage west to the Continental Divide in those days.  Alongside the Northern Pacific and the Jefferson River it chased the grade laid out for it decades before.  These were days of strength: days when steel wheels rolled over the steel rails and the thought of weakness awaiting at the door seemed like something impossible.  How could the end of strength come?  How could the overhead power that supplied 5000Hp Little Joes ever grow cold?  How could a Thunderhawk no longer run,...

The smile of a child - for them there is no other time than the now.  There is no worry of what will come tomorrow, no question of events beyond their control and out of their minds eye, no concern.  There is just delight in the present and a smile on the lips.   I'm older, the years have held both disappointment but also joy.  Nonetheless there are a few things that still bring a smile for life in the moment.  Welcome to the KCS Meridian Speedway, two GP38s and an inbound local, finished with the switching moves for the day.  It's a simple thing that I ran across one recent afternoon, but it still makes me smile just like a child. Maybe it's the longevity of the two-cycle diesels and the rush of the hot exhaust as the little train hustles east?  Perhaps it conjures some distant memory of a little boy standing trackside in some other place, some other time?  To that little boy, even the broken red glass of a railroad crossing that had s...

Rolling westbound with the NP line to Butte, Willow Creek MT lies just over 1456 miles from Mile 0, the place where the great journey west with the Milwaukee began.  Under wires since crossing through Harlowton, the line winds ever westward through the rain shadow of the Rockies and now past the elevator that still stands along the NP.  The rails through Willow Creek are misleading but they let the imagination dream dreams of things long departed.   Fueled by the instant feedback and fast returns of modern culture, we sit in a world that is defined by the fast pace of change.  We gaze at the small stage presented by our phones instead of the heavens, and respond to a tweet instead of bigger questions.  A question like how the wind moves the grasses on the grand prairies, or the eternal emptiness of the skies above where the sun runs its course like a Champion each day.   The land of the Western Extension lies spread out along this much ...

In the pre-dawn darkness of the last day of 2016, the rain is falling as I wander the quiet streets of a small town in the Southern US.  It's the sort of morning that feels cold even when it's 50F ... it's a damp and soaking cold and that clings to a person's body and sends chills through them as though it were much cooler than it is.   The streets are glistening with the reflected lights of lampposts and  Christmas decorations that are hanging for just a couple more days.  Through the dark comes the haunting call of the KCS on the Meridian Speedway.  Very soon, 8000 horsepower of diesels will split this small, dark town in two.  The sounds of the approaching manifest are clear through the wet air ... and my mind casts back to the Great Lakes, an eastbound Capitol Limited on a winter night, and the tinted plexiglass windows of modern American rail travel, now two decades past....   Night time had fallen accross the flatlands of the midwest ...

With the high tension AC lines and the NP as backdrop, the mainline arrives Willow Creek, MT. Now 1456.2 miles from Union Station in Chicago.  The Jefferson River and Vendome Loop lie ahead.  The boxcab electrics added as helpers at Three Forks stand ready to make the push across the Rockies one more time.