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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by VerMontanan [quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal It's simple: John Stevens stumbles across Marias Pass, and suddenly James Hill is a genius. Without Marias Pass, the GN would have been BY FAR the worst of the Northern transcons in terms of profile and alignment, worse than the Northern Pacific, worse than the Milwaukee, worse than the Union Pacific. [/quote] Considering the source, this statement is not a surprise. "Stumble?" Marias Pass was well known by the Blackfeet Indians in the area, so the existence of Marias Pass was not much of a secret. The Rocky Mountains are an extensive chain, so it's not like the "discovery" of the pass was pure luck, he was looking in this area for a reason. And the point of such a post is ridiculous. So WHAT IF the GN had not found Marias Pass? What does that matter? The FACT is that they did, and the rest is history. But let's play "what if" just to prove Futuremodal wrong, as usual, with his statement that then "the GN would have been BY FAR the worst of the Northern transcons in terms of profile and alignment." OK....WHAT IF the GN had a crossing of the Continental Divide similar to that of the Milwaukee Road over Pipestone Pass? Assuming the remainder of the GN route to be the same (one has to have such "givens" playing "what if"), GN trains west from Minneapolis would (as now) only confronting a maximum grade of .65 percent. West of Havre to whatever-crossing-this-woud-be-that-would-be-as-steep-as-Pipestone-Pass, the grade have sections of 1 percent. Meanwhile, on the the Milwaukee east of the Divide, their first 1 percent grade would be way back in South Dakota at Summit, and west of Harlowton, the 1.4 percent "doubling" grade at Loweth. Eastbound from the Divide, the GN route would not have a grade (as it is now) over .8 percent, where the MILW had a very long climb at 1 percent through Sixteen Mile Canyon. West of the Divide, GN trains, west of whatever-crossing-this-woud-be-that-would-be-as-steep-as-Pipestone-Pass, would deal with no grade more than .7 percent westbound and .8 percent eastbound between there and Spokane. Meanwhile, on the MILW, trains would have to climb (in both directions) the 1.7 percent St. Paul Pass over the Bitterroots. Between the Twin Cities and Spokane, even playing "what if", the GN route wins hands down. West of Spokane (using this as a common point, for freight service, Spokane was really on a MILW branch), the MILW was better, but only nominally so. Both routes had a westbound 2.2 percent climb; eastbound the GN had a 2.2 percent climb, and the MILW two major hills at 1.74 and 1.6 percent. However, unlike the MILW, which had only one route, GN had the option of moving trains via their SP&S subsidiary between Spokane and Vancouver/Portland with grade in each direction of less than one percent. While the MILW didn't serve Portland until after the BN merger, the SP&S route for GN traffic can best be compared to MILW route for traffic to/from Longview, Washington, which was served by the MILW all along. In this case, GN would route traffic on the SP&S to Vancouver and north, while the MILW, having no alternative to its 2.2 percent climb over the Saddle Mountains, would then have to push it up 3 percent Tacoma Hill. In other words, since the GN had only one major hill on its westward route and the Milwaukee four, inserting another hill on the GN route isn't going to dethrone it from being the superior route. As ridiculous as the "what if" scenario proposed by futuremodal is with regard to a comparison between the GN and MILW, the "what if" of the GN and the UP is even more confusing because the UP crossing of the Continental Divide (in the Red Desert of Wyoming) is just about flat (it's in Oregon where the UP has most of the big hills), so it's difficult know where to begin here. As for a comparison between GN and NP routes "what if" GN didn't have Marias Pass and the GN subsequently being "far worse" than the NP alignment, I will leave to futuremodal to explain how, operationally, the GN route between the Twin Cities and Havre (.6 percent eastbound, .65 percent westbound) is inferior to the one percent grades encounted by the NP between the Twin Cities and Livingston at places like Peak, Jamestown, Fryburg, and Beaver Hill. Additionally, he could explain the benefits of 1.8 percent westbound and 1.9 percent eastbound grades over Bozeman Pass between Livingston and the Continental Divide as opposed to the GN's 1 percent westbound and .8 percent eastbound profile in the corresponding area between Havre and the "what if" pass (if it wasn't Marias). [quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal Hill got lucky that one time, and that plus his feeding off the NP land grants over the years was enough to carry the GN over what was undoubtedly THE WORST crossing of the Cascades via Stevens Pass. (Well, would you look at that! The whole history of the GN summed up in one consise paragraph. Betcha ya'll can't do that!) [/quote] I'd be interested in documentation that GN ever (prior to the 1970 merger) benefitted speficially from the NP land grants. Such was never the case. As for the GN crossing of the Cascades being "undoubtedly" the worst, the doubts are only those among us non-conspiracy theorists who wonder: Well, then why is it still the main route across the Cascades and the only one in continuous use since it was opened? [/quote] Hmmm. No mention of Haskell's Pass. No mention of the convaluted routing through Spokane. No mention of the original Cascade line. No mention of all the reroutes GN had to build. No wonder, considering the source. The original Manitoba had it's western terminus at Great Falls, where it connected with the Montana Central to Butte. The GN's "PCE" started from Havre. Reroute #1. 115 or so miles of mainline track wasted, relegated to branchline status The original route west of Glacier ran over Haskell's Pass at 4100' elevation and with 1.6% grades. Hill later built the Rexburg line and abandoned the Haskell's Pass line. Reroute #2. 105 miles or so of mainline track wasted, with 90 or so abandoned and the remaining 15 relegated to branchline status. The original route between Troy and Bonners Ferry ran high up the north bank of the river with 0.8% grades and a high bridge over the Moyie River. The GN later rebuilt the line at water level on the south side. Reroute #3. 20 or so miles of mainline track wasted. (The segment from Bonners Ferry to the Moyie River was later utilized by the Spokane International.) The original route over the Cascades (not counting the temporary switchback route) ran along Tumwater Canyon and through the old Cascade tunnel, with 2.2% grades on each side, a 1.7% eastbound grade inside the tunnel, and the miles of showsheds between Wellington (renamed Tye as a PR stunt after the disasterous slide which killed over 100 people) and Scenic. Finally, the GN built the new Cascade Tunnel and the Chumstick cutoff in the 1920's. Reroutes #4 and #5. Miles of mainline track wasted: About 35 miles total. It should also be noted that this massive project "reduced" the grades from 2.2% on the old lines to 2.2% on the new lines, and the eastbound grade in the tunnel was reduced from 1.7% in the old tunnel to 1.7% in the new tunnel. After the BN merger, the original route through Spokane was abandoned in favor of the NP route, and new bridges constructed over Latah Creek and Indian Canyon. The rest of the GN from Spokane to Sandpoint was eventually abandoned and/or branchlined, so effectively the GN from north of Sandpoint to the west plains of Spokane was no longer needed. Reroute #6. Another 90 or so miles of mainline track wasted. (sources: Across the Columbia Plain by Peter J Lewty, Lines West by Charles R. Wood) That's roughly over 360 miles worth of reroutes over the years. 360 miles worth of wasted capital so far. That's an awful lot of cosmetic surgery needed to be crowned the "best" of the Northern Transcons. Phyllis Diller should have been so lucky. If the Milwaukee, NP, or UP had even a fraction of such reroutings available to them, any one of those roads could have easily put the GN to shame in terms of best route title. Only the CP with it's Rogers Pass projects even comes close to that level of cosmetic surgery. When Libby Dam was built, the BN opted to reroute via the Flathead tunnel route. Of course, since the Corps of Engineers was paying for it, BN could have chosen just about any type of realignment, and the Flathead tunnel line did reduce mileage somewhat, but at the cost of yet another tunnel needing to be cleared of smoke and gas before another train can use it. You would think the folks at BN would have learned the lesson from the difficulty of keeping the Cascade Tunnel fluid, and opted a different route without the need for a 7 mile tunnel. The Corps was responsible for rebuilding to BN's demands, and by the 1970's even BN could see that the route of U.S. Highway 2 between Kalispel and Libby managed to stay under 4000' running along the gentle valley of McGregor Lake. BN could have even opted to rebuild along the original Haskell's Pass route with a new 4 mile tunnel under Haskell's Pass. But for some reason, BN likes longer tunnels that are harder to clear out, and BN apparently didn't want to abandon the Whitefish yard with a Kalispel reroute.
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