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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by up829 Had there been no EMD, I wonder if the capital investment would have gone into more mainline electification. Does the Brown paper address that alternative? [/quote] It is interesting that during the 1950's both GN and Milwaukee were analyzing the cost/benefits of rebuidling and even extending their respective electrifications. The GN's decision to ventilate the Cascade Tunnel to allow diesels to work through the tunnel upgrade must have been made with the experiences they had with EMD products. If EMD hadn't come around, it is likely GN would have rebuilt and extended their electrification as far west as Everett WA. Meanwhile, the Milwaukee went ahead and rebuilt their electrification, utilizing it well into the 1970's until stock price manipulation(?) forced the elimination of the catenary. So if GN had kept and expanded their catenary into the BN merger, the added traffic through the Cascade Tunnel would not have been limited as it was (and still is) with diesels. It is a stretch of the imagination to think so, but perhaps we'd still have an electrified Stevens Pass route for BNSF able to handle 50 to 60 trains a day instead of today's 25, and thus Stampede Pass would be gone by now, and even grain trains might still be using Stevens Pass for Tacoma bound grain.
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