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Since I've given up trying to find my copy of "Milwaukee Road West", I'll post a few observations regarding Milwaukee's Puget Sound extension. It is true that the Milwaukee profile from Minneapolis to Harlowtown MT was and is still the best of the Northwest transcons. Even the route west out of Harlowtown to Lombard MT had only a 1.4% westbound and 1% eastbound ruling grade, and was a situation where the Milwaukee took advantage of an existing rail grade of the Montana Central to cut down on construction costs. However, from Lombard on west to Puget Sound one can only scratch one's head at the thoughts of the locating engineers. Instead of taking either the easiest route south-southwest along the Jefferson and Big Hole Rivers to Deer Lodge Pass (el 5901', used by UP for it's Butte line) OR following the Boulder River to Basin MT and then paralleling GN's Butte extension over Elk Park Pass (el 6368', westbound grade 1%), the Milwaukee instead built a convaluted line over Pipestone Pass (el 6453') at a 1.9% grade to reach Butte. Granted, the Pipestone Pass route was the shortest, but if you are going to build a railroad with the easiest possible alignment for 1000 miles from Minnesota, at least keep a consistent philosophy and stay that course! Also, it was well known at the time that the next lowest crossing of the Continental Divide (after GN's Marias Pass) in Montana was over Rogers Pass (el 5610') southwest of Great Falls. Although also slightly out of the way, it still would have made more sense for the Milwaukee to take this alignment than the chosen route over Pipestone Pass through Butte, but possibly Milwaukee saw mineral transportation from the Butte mines as a potential money maker. After that first line locating fiasco around Butte, the Milwaukee's line from Butte to Missoula (paralleling the NP) had a real nice alignment. Instead of taking the logical route over Lolo Pass (el 5235') which would have given the Milwaukee an entire region all to itself and allowed them a water level grade all the way to the coast, they chose to head toward Spokane WA again competing with NP and GN, and took another illogical line location to not quite get there. Although the line over St Paul Pass had ruling grades of only 1.7%, the curvature and expensive construction/maintenance of all the trestles and tunnels had to kill them financially as well as kill any hope for speed freights. Then to top if off, they bypassed Spokane to the south and instead built a redundant line into Spokane and purchased trackage rights over UP to reconnect with the mainline at Marengo WA. Still, up to that point the steepest grade was only 1.9%. Then they chose a difficult (but shorter) route over the Saddle Mountains at 2.2% to Ellensburg WA, and again paralleled NP until NP's line turned to the south over Stampede Pass. It should be credited to Milwaukee that their line over the Cascades was the best of the three transcons, with a ruling westbound grade of 1% and eastbound grade of 1.7% (compared to NP's and GN's lines with their 2.2% grades over Stampede and Stevens Pass respectively), at least until GN built the 8 mile Cascade Tunnel in the 1920's (but even then GN still had to deal with 2.2% grades). Also, the Milwaukee erred in not securing the North Bank of the Columbia River Gorge before James Hill got his hands on it, thereby eliminating the possibility of reaching the Coast with a water level grade from Idaho on west. The Milwaukee could have kept their westbound ruling grade at 1% and eastbound ruling grades at 1.7% or less simply utilizing the established geographical knowledge base available at the the time of the construction, which would have given them the upper hand in securing the lowest operating costs of the three transcons. Why they did not follow that protocol is one for the books. If they had, the Milwaukee (or at least the Milwaukee's alignment) would still be in use today.
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