ALL:
First I am retired NP-BN-BNSF Clerk from Northtown (Minneapolis) with 38 years of service. I worked in operations, engineering, and material departments and have a good working knowledge of railroading in general.
One item in the September, 2015 "Trains" was the authors opinion that the NP and MILW should have merger and let the GN and CBQ merge on their own.
My opinion is that the NP would not consider the MILW a merger partner for many reasons. The GN and NP each owned 45 or 48 percent of the CBQ. That was their freight and passenger route from the Pacific Northwest into Minneapolis, St. Paul, Sioux City (GN only), and Billings-Laurel. Don't forget that the NP and GN each owned their half of the St. Paul GOB. The GN-NP owned the SPS and the Midland Railway of Manitoba. The CBQ in turn owned the CS, which owned the FWD.
The NP was a very conservative railroad and thought things through before implementing them.
If the NP had merged with the MILW, the ICC would (probably) had them divest themselves of the CBQ. The NP would have received the Terry, Montana to St. Paul line, but would have been burdened with the many MILW branch lines in southern Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin.
Don't forget that the GN and NP wanted to merge about 1920 or so, but they would have had to sell the CBQ, their natural link to Chicago.
I was working at Northtown as of "M" Day and have worked in three of the former GN yards in Minneapolis. I will tell all that the company held pre-merger meetings in the Minneapolis depot so we could meet people and have the consolidated terminnal explained to us.
This is my opinion. I value the opinions of others.
Ed Burns
I think the article's author was saying the merger should not have happened from a regulatory standpoint. Obviously the NP, GN, and CB&Q were so tied together that they would not have considered a MILW merger on their own. If ICC had not allowed the BN merger, but instead had allowed a GN/CB&Q merger, then NP would have been left out in the cold, and might have needed MILW for a Chicago connection, and gain MILW's share of the PNW business. As it turned out , once MILW retrenched, then BN leased out the heart of the ex-NP to MRL There is no real competetion in the lane.
The NP and GN wanted to merge about 1920 or so, but would have to divest the CBQ, which was not going to happen.
Anthony Kane was a GN lawyer who was in charge of getting the merger through the courts. It almost happened in 1968, but did not happen. Finally in 1970 the merger took place.
Maybe the GN-CBQ would have been a good idea, but the strong leadership of the prior roads would not have let this happen.
As information, Anthony Kane's son was hired as a section laborer at Northtown and changed crafts to TYE. It was my honor to introduce him to Dave Hanson, Terminal Supt, who interviewed him for yardmaster. He holds the day yardmaster in the Hump Tower to this day.
While I agree with some of the "Blunders" in the article, the BN merger wasn't one of them. To suggest that the NP and MILW should have merged would even be a bigger blunder, especially considering that the author pegged the construction of the Milwaukee Road's Pacific Extension as Blunder No. 4 (out of the top 13).
One problem with the NP-MILW merger (and subsequent GN-CB&Q merger) is that it suggests the MILW and CB&Q were pretty much equal. Not the case. Most of the Milwaukee's mileage was on the Pacific Extension and its poor branchline network to obscure places like Ontonogan, Michigan, Seymour, Indiana, and Rapid City, SD. The CB&Q had too many branches in Nebraska and Iowa, but its core routes were strong. Compare, if you will, access to Omaha and Kansas City on the CB&Q vs. MILW. No contest.
Then you have that the GN's route structure was far superior to that of the NP, so combining the GN and CB&Q (the strongest railroads) with the NP and the MILW (the weakest of the 4) meant that the NP really got the short end of the stick. As stated earlier, there is no way this would have happened to thwart James J. Hill's vision and the complexity of dealing with that the GN and NP each owned half of the CB&Q and SP&S. The salient point is that as long as the MILW had their Pacific Extension, no one wanted it, being the high-cost route that it was. (NP+MILW west of Terry Montana would pretty much look like the NP + maybe the chunk from Easton, WA to Black River over Snoqualmie Pass, but little other MILW track.)
Midland Mike's speculation "there is no real competition in the lane" is a commonly stated myth. There were other railroads besides the GN and NP in Minnesota, North Dakota and Washington. In Montana, the MILW would provide more competition with the GN (in areas around Great Falls, for example) and NP (around Missoula and Bozeman) than the GN and NP had with each other due to the distance the routes are separated in the state. Due to its inferior profile and branch line network, the MILW couldn't compete with either the GN or NP (more so as we speculate in present day with increasingly heavier trains).
The number 5 blunder is the attempted Southern Pacific-Santa Fe merger. That one qualifies. But BN? Things turned out just the way they should have.
Mark Meyer
I guess I should have defined the "lane" as Twin Cities-Pacific Northwest. The UP was roundabout, as was the Soo/CP/SI/UP. The only other significant RR in the Minn and ND service area was the Soo. Wash also had the UP. If the ICC had dug their heels in, and did not allow a GN-NP combo, the two strongest (GN and CB&Q) might have left the NP out in the cold. NP's main interest in the MILW would have been for the Twin Cities-Chicago line. Snoqualmie Pass and a few other pieces would have been an added benefit. ICC might have forced the NP divestiture of their CB&Q interest. The SP&S could have continued as a joint line.
Anyway some of the spin-off the NP has already transpired. First, west of Billings with the MRL. As coal traffic continues to erode, I look for BNSF to spin-off the line east of Billings.
MidlandMike The UP was roundabout, as was the Soo/CP/SI/UP.
The UP was roundabout, as was the Soo/CP/SI/UP.
Mike,
The actual mileages between St. Paul and Spokane are:
GN, via Willmar, Kindred, Havre: 1446
MILW (via UP trackage rights Manito-Spokane): 1473
Soo/CP/SI/UP via Harvey, Moose Jaw, Dunmore, Yahk, Eastport: 1476
NP, via Helena, St. Regis: 1526.
So, depending on your definition of "Pacific Northwest", NP has the longest route mileage to places like Spokane and Portland, except for the C&NW/UP route. On that route between St. Paul and Portland, GN's shortest route was 1815 miles, Soo/CP/SI/UP 1856 miles, NP via St. Regis (main freight route) 1903 miles but the C&NW/UP via California Jct., IA is 2102 miles, considerably longer than the competition.
Most seem to forget that the NP entered Montana in the Northeast part of the state - Glendive is closer to Saskatchewan than Wyoming - veers 100 miles to the south on its westward trip across Montana and exits Montana in the Northwest corner. Lots of extra miles - many more, in fact than Soo-CP-SI-UP.
I doubt BNSF will "spin off" the line east of Billings anytime soon. It has already added numerous sidings and is installing CTC to increase capacity. I don't think the "end of coal" will occur all that soon.
Fortunately, the Prince and Ripley plans didn't happen either. The author on the SPSF, RI/UP and BN mergers of the time should have better explained the competitive forces at play in each event.
There were plenty of things "not good" about the BN adventure that proper managerial training (top to bottom) might have helped, but that big dumb monolith managed to survive in spite of itself.
There was a lot of imported arrogance in the SPSF follies that left us all in the trenches wondering why our input was never much even entertained. The mess afterwards was a circus with UP, BN, Sam Zell, Blackstone, Kinsey Group and other Wall Street freak shows crawling all over the property.
One wonders what would have taken place in the Powder River coal fields had NP/MILW and GN/CB&Q had been in place. Could either of the two systems (or three, looking at CNW/UP as well) been able to put together the capital to expand the rail system the area? BN was able to justify the investment knowing that they would reap the full benefit (or, at least, that was the theory!).
I hate these lists disguised as news stories wherever they appear. They are strictly sausage stuffers, and should be regarded as such by readers. I produced my (reluctant) share of them as a newspaperman over 20 years.
TRAINS is so off-base including BN in the blunder category as to be laughable. Yeah, BN was slow in paying off -- as all railroading was 40 years ago -- but how about the result today?
TRAINS should stop trying for chic and pandering to short attention spans and stick with solid journalism.
VerMontanan, The real circuity in the Soo/CP/SI/UP route comes after Spokane, wher it takes the trip over the UP via Hinkle/Portland/Seattle.
While I don't think that a BNSF spin-off of the ex-NP east of Billings is imminent, I would not want to guess beyond 5 years out. Are not most of the upgrades they are doing on the route in he Bakken Field? Between oil field production decline curves and pipeline competition, that business could disappear as fast as it started.
Mike: Besides coal, oil, ethanol and puh-lenty of grain, the former NP east of Billings catches overflow traffic from the High Line and is a critical resort when something goes wrong up there.
Don't bet on management making the Montana Rail Link mistake twice.
MidlandMike VerMontanan, The real circuity in the Soo/CP/SI/UP route comes after Spokane, wher it takes the trip over the UP via Hinkle/Portland/Seattle.
Not really, because BNSF uses the same circuity. (It's actually not circuity, it's the case of not using 125% more power to move the trains over the mountains.) Remember, we're talking Twin Cities to Pacific Northwest. Except for intermodal (which there is relatively little of from the Twin Cities or Dakotas to the Norhtwest), BNSF merchandise, coal, crude, and grain is routed via Pasco and Vancouver, WA to Seattle/Tacoma, pretty much paralleling the CP/UP route. With regard to grain, it's also important to remember that more goes to Portland, Vancouver, Kalama, and Longview than to Tacoma and Seattle anyway. Crude is destined mostly to BNSF-captive locations, CP has given BNSF trains from the Bakken at New Westminster, BC for delivery to port facilities north of Bellingham.
MidlandMike While I don't think that a BNSF spin-off of the ex-NP east of Billings is imminent, I would not want to guess beyond 5 years out. Are not most of the upgrades they are doing on the route in he Bakken Field? Between oil field production decline curves and pipeline competition, that business could disappear as fast as it started.
Yes, most of the upgrades are in the Bakken Field, but on multiple routes. Ex-Great Northern routes across North Dakota have seen the most upgrades, but on the ex-Northern Pacific route has seen them also. Extra yard tracks have been added at Forsyth and Glendive, as well as about three extra sidiings between Forsyth and Casselton. Glendive to Casselton should be all CTC by the end of this year, whereas a couple of years ago, none was.
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the Milwaukee Road ask to be included in the Burlington Northern Merger?
IIRC, BN didn't want it..
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
carnej1 Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the Milwaukee Road ask to be included in the Burlington Northern Merger? IIRC, BN didn't want it..
MILW shot themselves in the foot.
I thought it would be good to tell of two mistakes the BN/BNSF made. First was MRL. Dennis was an NP clerk that bid from Northtown to Laurel, Montana immediately after the 1970 merger. He told me that the BN was sorry for the sale before the ink was dry on the paperwork. Gary is a retired SOO/BN/BNSF train dispatcher. He said that Dennis Washington has the best haulage agreement. When the BN/BNSF train hits Jones Junction, the MRL gets paid.
About 1998, Rob Krebs was at Northtown for an open meeting. I ask him abou the re-purchase of the Washington Central (Stampede line) for 30 million. All he said that a previous administration was to blame. It was sold for 3 million!
The BNSF will not repeat previous mistakes.
I would think the only Milwaukee trackage NP would have wanted was the Twin Cities to Milwaukee and Chicago main line and very little else. UP would have wanted Chicago access. NP would have been hard pressed to survive if GN had gotten the Burlington and the UP got acess to Chicago. The NP would have sought merger with GN sometime in the 1970's. Most Milwaukee trackage would have been abandoned shortly after the merger, had it happened.
mudchicken carnej1 Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the Milwaukee Road ask to be included in the Burlington Northern Merger? IIRC, BN didn't want it.. They asked in March 1973 (3 years after BN hatched).... MILW shot themselves in the foot.
They asked in March 1973 (3 years after BN hatched)....
If I correctly recall the proposed C&NW-Milwaukee road merger (which actually began as a proposed threeway merger that would also have included the Rock Island) made some sense when initially discussed in the early 60's but the I.C.C approval process dragged on until it was a moot point..
dakotafred Mike: Besides coal, oil, ethanol and puh-lenty of grain, the former NP east of Billings catches overflow traffic from the High Line and is a critical resort when something goes wrong up there. Don't bet on management making the Montana Rail Link mistake twice.
As I have mentioned before, I think the ex-NP east of Glendive, where most of the trafic you mentioned originates, is safe for the foreseeable future. However, west of there is heavily coal dependent. I have heard the anecdotal stories of BN operations people who were sorry to lose the MRL milage. Nevertheless, I understand the plan after the projected Tongue River shortcut was to have been built, was to continue spinning-off more NP line east to Miles City to MRL. The MRL is nice to have as an alternative when BNSF has a traffic surge, however, as long as they have access, they might not want to own it.
MidlandMike The MRL is nice to have as an alternative when BNSF has a traffic surge, however, as long as they have access, they might not want to own it.
The MRL is nice to have as an alternative when BNSF has a traffic surge, however, as long as they have access, they might not want to own it.
BN was hardly a blunder as stated in the article. NP and MILW were the two weaker roads and probably would have ultimately failed. GN-CBQ would have wound up with the GN ore business in Minnesota, the Powder River coal boom, most of the North Dakota oil boom, the best intermodal route Seattle/Portland to Chicago, a main line Chicago to Denver, and a mainline to Texas.
I don't buy that portion of the article.
Revisionist history always has an agenda.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I strongly disagree that the NP was a weak railroad. Remember that I worked for the NP from April 1966 until the BN merger. The NP had on line coal in North Dakota, sugar beets in eastern Montana and the fruit belt in the Yakima valley. Don't forget all the grain the NP hauled.
Redore BN was hardly a blunder as stated in the article. NP and MILW were the two weaker roads and probably would have ultimately failed. GN-CBQ would have wound up with the GN ore business in Minnesota, the Powder River coal boom, most of the North Dakota oil boom, the best intermodal route Seattle/Portland to Chicago, a main line Chicago to Denver, and a mainline to Texas. I don't buy that portion of the article.
NP/MILW would have failed? How much of the NP mainline has been abandoned by BNSF? Is it not busy? How much of the MILW Chicago-Twin Cities main has been abandoned? How about from there to Terry, MT? If NP/MILW had been shut out of Powder River, they could have built the Tongue River line themselves, and tapped in as the UP did. How much traffic would the BNSF Denver line have if they did not have access to the ex-DRGW/WP line?
NP/MILW would have definitely been the weak sister and would have been stuck with a redundant Twin Cities-Seattle line. GN had a better engineered main and Burlington had a better network of Midwest routes. While the NP main has not been abandoned, much of it is leased to and operated by Montana Rail Link, not BNSF.
NP Eddie I strongly disagree that the NP was a weak railroad. Remember that I worked for the NP from April 1966 until the BN merger. The NP had on line coal in North Dakota, sugar beets in eastern Montana and the fruit belt in the Yakima valley. Don't forget all the grain the NP hauled. Ed Burns
Ed,
I can't see where anyone said the NP was a weak railroad; the reference was weaker compared to GN and CB&Q.
With regard to your mention of commodities: The coal along the NP in North Dakota was lignite, which is the worst kind there is (that's why today it's not shipped any long distance; the only thing that makes lignite economically feasible is where the facility using it is very close by, but higher grade sub-bituminous from Montana and Wyoming is shipped all over by rail, even to North Dakota); Sugar beets were not handled any great distance, rather just to a processing plant such as in Sidney or Billings (therefore low margin freight); Today, all the traffic out of the Yakima Valley is handled on one daily local making a Yakima turn out of Pasco; NP probably served a grain producing area in North Dakota on par with GN, but didn't go to South Dakota at all. Today on BNSF, there are 23 shuttle grain facilities accessed by former GN trackage in Minnesota, but only 2 on ex-NP; In Montana, of the 23 shuttle grain facilities today, 20 are on ex-GN routes, but only 3 on former NP.
That doesn't make it a weak railroad just a weaker one. But much stronger than the Milwaukee, to be sure.
"Morgan, it all depends on whose ox is being gored."
If you know the source of this quote, no further explanation is necessary; if you don't, it'd take too long for me to find and explain it.
- PDN.
Uncle JakeNP did have a branch network in eastern Washington's grain country that was much more extensive than that of the GN.
CSSHEGEWISCH NP/MILW would have definitely been the weak sister and would have been stuck with a redundant Twin Cities-Seattle line. GN had a better engineered main and Burlington had a better network of Midwest routes. While the NP main has not been abandoned, much of it is leased to and operated by Montana Rail Link, not BNSF.
I think everyone has agreed that NP was the weak sister. Nevertheless, BN wisely kept the MRL line as a reserve, even guaranteeing them a certain number of trains to make sure they stayed in business. Many of the responders to this post look at the merger from the same point of view of the BN, saying that it was not a mistake. I think the original thesis of the Trains article was that it was a mistake from the point of view of the health of the railroad industry as a whole. After the merger, the MILW failed and the NP main was downgraded. Apparent competition eliminated. If the merger didn't happen, even a struggling NP/MILW would have kept the GN/CB&Q on their toes, and from becoming complacent. They (NP/MILW) probably would have been swollowed up by the UP eventually, providing actual competition in the northern corridor.
dakotafredhate these lists disguised as news stories wherever they appear. They are strictly sausage stuffers, and should be regarded as such by readers.
What can one think? I was shocked to see Penn Station included as one of the biggest blunders in RAILROADING.
Gee, how many railroads even think passenger rail is important today? How many are sitting around thinking "If we just had an opulant passenger terminal in Manhattan, we could operate a successful passenger business!"? How many of the class one's have any desire at all to be involved in passenger rail?
I could see the demolition of Penn Station being included in such a list in Architectural Digest perhaps. But including it's demise in a railroad-centric account, seems just a little too weepy, sticky, sweet sentimentalist to me.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.