local article about MRL

[JSGreen]

Posted this morning on the Missoulian website... 

 Towing the line
20 years after Montana Rail Link took over track owned by Burlington Northern things have settled down
By KIM BRIGGEMAN of the Missoulian
Photographed by MICHAEL GALLACHER of the Missoulian

The 1,000 miles of Rail Link track services around 15 to 18 trains a day on average. A computerized system keeps traffic flowing smoothly and monitors the whereabouts of not only the trains, but also work crews maintaining the tracks. MICHAEL GALLACHER/Missoulian

Funny thing about trains.

They're too huge, too powerful, too romantic, too graceful and all too familiar to be of much interest these days.

Take the coal train puffing west from Big Timber the other day.

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Who cared that it was 125 cars long, and that at any one moment it occupied more than a mile and a quarter of track?

That three giant locomotives pulled the train, but they weren't going to be nearly enough after it cleared the yard in Livingston and approached Bozeman Hill?

That the two engineers in charge had to be off duty and on their way home by 7 p.m.?

Don Smith cared.

His domain is the nearly 1,000 miles of track controlled by Montana Rail Link. In the company's 20 years of existence, Smith has been a clerk in the Missoula yard, a dispatcher at headquarters off North Reserve Street and, since 1992, director of train movement.

"If it's happening within 4 feet of the rail, it's being funneled through this office," Smith said.

 

Click the link for the rest of the article....