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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by CMSTPP There electric locomotives brought in quite allot of revenue, Untill the merger of The BN. Then the milwaukee road had to face one the largest railroads in the USA. [/quote] It had been my view in the 1980's post-PCE retrenchment that the Milwaukee should have asked for far greater trackage rights over the BN system as a condition of the 1970 BN merger. Namely, I felt Milwaukee should have asked for access of the entire SP&S trackage and the I-5 corridor from Portland to the Canadian border south of Vancouver. This would have allowed them to access the same PNW markets as BN over the same more direct and low grade routes. I think it was Micheal Sol who indirectly backed up this view when he stated that, in retrospect, the Milwaukee pretty much could have gotten anything they asked from BN since the Hill Lines were so desperate to consolidate. If Milwaukee had gotten these conditions, the subsequent abandonment of the electrification would not have had such a negative impact on Milwaukee's ability to handle heavy haul trains to PNW ports. Because of the electrification, Milwaukee had the best line for unit grain trains, as the electrification more than mitigated the 2% of Pipestone, the 1.7% of St. Paul Pass, and the 2.2% westbound over the Saddle Mountains. When the Milwaukee gave up the electrification, this shifted the heavy haul advantage to the BN via Marias Pass and the Columbia Gorge. But with the SP&S/I-5 trackage rights, perhaps they could have maintained their advantage. If the Milwaukee directors had already made the decision to forego electrification at the time of the BN merger, then an additional trackage request would probably include the GN from Great Falls over Marias to Spokane, the NP from St. Regis to Spokane via Sandpoint, and the NP from Pasco to Thorp. With these conditions the Milwaukee would have more than survived, because it then would have had access to all low grade routes in the PNW, while having sole access to the lowest grade crossing of the Cascades to Puget Sound.
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