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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding I bet if big coal deposits were found there, they'd find a way to do a joint line. [/quote] Nope. They'd do it just like they do in the PRB: UP's stuff goes south and out, BNSF's stuff goes north and out. There is no run through cooperation on the Orin line. [quote]QUOTE: I like your new and improved tagline. Milwaukee/GN vs. CBQ/NP might have been the way to go. [/quote] Milwaukee and GN? Why would the Milwaukee want to have been saddled with the GN's array of inferiorities? Milwaukee had the best Cascade crossing, GN the worst via the Old Cascade Tunnel, still in use in 1920. Milwaukee avoided a mainline entry into Spokane, GN's mainline through Spokane was the worst, far worse than NP's or UP/SI's. Marias Pass and the High line were frankly too far north for a Chicago-PNW corridor when the Milwaukee prefered a straight shot, might as well just merge with CP and use 4500' Crownest Pass or merge with CN and use the 3700' Yellowhead Pass if having "the lowest elevation crossing of the Rockies" is paramount. If Milwaukee had to choose between GN or NP, they'd been better off merging with NP. Since the Milwaukee and NP paralleled each other in much of Montana, they could have utilized parts of the NP as a second track if need be, and the new Milwaukee Northern would be able to raise rates where before NP and Milwaukee had to compete. Milwaukee Northern could have used the Mullan Pass line between Lombard and Garrison to reduce the transcon by 40 or so miles, and used the ex-NP between St. Regis and Spokane as a water level alternative to St. Paul Pass. They also could have used NP's Yakima River route as a water level alternative to Milwaukee's Saddle Mountain crossing. And of course getting NP's I-5 corridor (although back then it was barely a U.S. 99 corridor) and NP's share of SP&S would have been frosting on the cake. And most importantly of all, there was significant borrowing power backed up by NP's land grants. Otherwise, the rest of the NP could have been scrapped in deference to Milwaukee's superior PCE alignment. Scrap Stampede Pass, scrap Marshall Canyon, scrap or branchline the Ritzville line, scrap Evaro Hill, scrap Homestake Pass, scrap Bozeman Pass, scrap or branchline the Glendive line, use the ND line as a grain branch or scrap it, scrap the Garrison-Butte line in deference to Milwaukee's Butte line. And with a Milwaukee takeover of NP, GN would have been left hanging with only CB&Q as it's partner, so we'd have the Great Burlington Northern. No NP land grants to lower borrowing costs for their expensive wish list of projects, like the new Cascade Tunnel, so GN would have been left to struggle over the Wellington, ... er Tye line. No funds for the Oregon Trunk line and the Bieber connection with WP. Meanwhile, Milwaukee Northern would use it's new found borrowing power to constuct it's new St Paul Pass line with 0.8% ruling grades (and now the Milwaukee Northern can scrap or regionalize the Clark Fork line west of St. Regis), perhaps a new Mullan Pass tunnel with 1% ruling grades. As time would have gone on, the Great Burlington Northern would struggle, and eventually bankruptcy by 1970 would force the GBN to retrench it's High Line by order of the Trustee, making the GBN a mostly Midwest Granger, eventually swallowed up by the Rock Island. "A butterfly flaps it's wings........." That's how things really shake out, the luck of the draw.
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