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[quote user="VerMontanan"] [quote user="futuremodal"] 1Now you know why I really despise BNSF....5.  The ex-GN lines in Montana from Havre to Great Falls to Helena to Butte - Yes, the Marias Pass is the best crossing of the Rocky Mountains (not counting Crowsnest and Yellowhead passes in Canada!), but that line from Havre to Helena represented a nice alternative routing to relieve congestion over Marias.  A few new short rail links here and there would have done the trick to make the routing viable without backtracking, but back then as we all know "capacity" was a dirty word in railroading lexicon.  And that line over Elk Park Pass was the best westbound routing over the Divide to the Butte/Silver bow area compared to Mullan, Homestake, Pipestone or Dear Lodge passes.  Again, an opportunity was lost for directional running - Mullan could have been used for BNSF's eastbounds, Elk Park Pass for westbounds.[/quote]Actually, he needs a girlfriend with a good knowledge of Montana railroading geography.  Opposites attract, as they say.  Claiming that the railroad over Elk Park Pass to be the best westbound route over the Continental Divide in the Butte area couldn't be more incorrect.  It was, by far, the worst route over the Divide in this area, and therefore logically was the first to be abandoned.  Deer (not Dear, as FM states) Lodge Pass (UP) northbound is 1.3 percent, Pipestone Pass (MILW) was 2.0 percent, Homestake (NP) and Mullan (NP) were/are 2.2 percent.  Elk Park Pass (GN) was also 2.2 percent (from Bernice, west of Basin to Elk Park) over the Continental Divide, but this wasn't the worst of it...from Clancy to Amazon tunnel was also 2.2 percent...so basically you had two 2.2 percent grades that were separated by that the railroad dropped into the valley of the Boulder River near Boulder and then climbed back out.  Every once in awhile abandoning duplicate routes makes sense, and this was the case with Elk Park Pass shortly after the BN merger when the Butte Local out of Great Falls began operating via Garrison and Deer Lodge.[/quote]Glad to see my good chum Mark is back from whatever it is that he does.  And as usual he presents a partial synopsis for the seeming purpose of misrepresenting the gist of the facts in the case.I will reiterate:  Elk Park Pass has the best westbound approach for a Continental Divide crossing in mainstem Montana, better than Mullan, better than Homestake, better than Pipestone, and yes, better than Deer Lodge Pass.  Elk Park Pass is named for Elk Park, an 8 mile long flat basin at the top of the Continental Divide north of Butte.  From the breaks of Basin Canyon to the pass, it is nearly a 0% gradient from a geological perspective.The fact that JJ Hill and friends chose to convalute an up and down 2.2%  route between Helena and Butte (as Mark so graciously admits) in no way takes away from the geologic gift that Elk Park Pass would have made for a more mainline westbound approach, should NP or Milwaukee have chosen to use Elk Park Pass.  Hey, even JJ and friends could have rebuilt the GN Butte line into a more gentler alignment if it had been in their interests, you know, since JJ practically had to rebuild the entire GN in other places (insert fake coughing sound "Haskell's Pass").[;)]And although using Elk Park Pass for a major east-west mainline railroad crossing of the CD in Montana would have been a bit longer than Mullan, Homestake, or Pipestone, it would still have been less mileage than if NP or Milwaukee had used Deer Lodge Pass for the purpose of an east-west mainline.
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