The Milwaukee Road

[Anonymous]

For those of you that like to read railroad stories
here are a few pages about the end times of the
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific.

http://www.wwvrailway.com/milwauke.htm

This is from the perspective of a railfan on the
Pacific Division in Washington State.

Enjoy!
Dennis

[gabe]

Thank you very much for posting that link; it was truly excellent.

I have always contended that the Milwaukee Road may be the most interesting of all railroads--and this is from somone who was less than 4-years old at the time of its demise and has spent the majority of his life away from former Milwaukee Road lines. I wish I could have got a glimpse of its intrepid soul before it departed.

There are times when I rail fan in Southern Indiana and stand aside the former Milwaukee Road Chicago-Louisville main. It is almost chilling to think that at one point in time--before the era of mega mergers--the line I am standing on once stretched to Pudget Sound.

Gabe

[jeaton]

At somewhere around age 19 or 20, I decided to take a month and a half leave of absence and use my half rate priveleges to take a Chicago-LA-Seattle-Chicago trip. My plan for the Seattle-Chicago leg was to fill a long held wi***o ride the Olympian Hiawatha. To this day, I regret having been about three months too late to use that train, and the best I could do was catch the truncated train from Butte.

I agree with Gabe's view of the CMStP&P, and I am glad Dennis gave us the link.

[dknelson]

I may be a bit off on my facts but I believe the Milwaukee Road was the result of combining and merging about 150 railroads, which accounts for the wild variety of depots it had, and also accounts for the incredibly out of the way places it tended to have branch lines.
Dave Nelson

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Not only were the branches in out of the way places but the same could be said for the Chicago-Omaha main. It managed to miss or hit only the outskirts of every sizable between the endpoints. Only the Chicago Great Western did worse. It may explain why both of them have been in large part abandoned.

[jeaton]

CSS-Probably right on there. I have a 1923 Map of rail lines in Wisconsin prepared for the WI Railroad Commission showing the MILW all over the place, including the branch that ran through the property that later became my family farm. Abandoned in 1943, the ROW is still there, used as a smowmobile trail. Interestingly, the ROW is still listed on property rolls as CMStP&P ownership. Keep meaning to do more research on the actual ownership. Calls to CP and CN got responses that amounted to big ? mark. Is it hallowed ground or something? I'll give the forum updates if I solve the mystery.

Jay

[Anonymous]

Funny how the disadvantage of not serving intermediate cities then would be an advantage today. Maybe the Chicago-Omaha main might have been a nice thing to have now for coal and stack trains. (EL main, too with its substantial clearances to boot?)

[gabe]

tomtrain:

Also, with city zoning preferences being what they are now days, hitting the sizables on the outskirts of town would also be an advantage.

I find it kind of ironic. There was a recent post under an Erie heading that said he had hoped the Erie and Milwaukee Road would merge in the 70s. I have heard many of the same criticisms of the E that have been credited to the Milwaukee Road under this heading. I miss them both, so they share yet another similarity.

Gabe

[Anonymous]

The Milwaukee's Puget Sound Extension was built from scratch. They purposfully avoided all the population centers because those towns and cities were already served by the NP, GN or both. The MILW decided to compete on transit time to the coast, and they built the shortest, fastest, and only continuous route from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest in the process. After that they built the branch lines.

[gabe]

Couldn't agree more with all of your contentions, Mark. But, to steal a line from Trains--if scenery could pay the bills . . .

Your point about local bias is kind of why I am so taken by the Milwaukee Road. I will forever be an Illinois Central fan because of the bias you described. But, when the Milwaukee Road filed for bankruptcy, I was roughly 2 and I probably didn't even see a rail that once belonged to the Milwaukee Road until roughly law school--yet I am drawn to it. I suppose that is why I like it--it bucks the trend.

Given my time machine, I would have to visit the Milwaukee Road in the "Fall." I suppose the fact that I never got to see it and yet seem to have missed it by so little is what drives my choice. I don't know if it is the orange diesles blending well with the landscape, but every time I see a picture of the Milwaukee Road during its final years, it has a swansong quality to it. Also, it would mean a lot to me to know that I would be seeing something that there are few traces of now days--in short, all we have lost.

I have always said the reason I love railroading is because it reminds me of everything we once were while simultaneously speaking to what we still may be. This post, and Mark's ennunciation of how traffic has grown in the last 30 years and the difficulties in predicting how it will grow in the next 30 is why I will always keep coming back.

Gabe

[Overmod]

Perhaps this is a dumb question -- what about silk traffic? Not that it would have justified the whole financing of the extension -- but it would have represented a cargo that rewarded fast and timely end-to-end service from the Pacific Northwest ports (in generally cool climate) through to a connection to Paterson (clearly an Erie thang!) or other areas where the mills were. Acetate rayon and other substitutes didn't get a foothold til the late '30s, IIRC, and while my knowledge of silk trains is pretty much limited to the Freeload-Cubbard-style Railroad Magazine sort of coverage, I'd think that the CMStP&P would have been in an interesting position to provide competition...

[Anonymous]

Mark-
Since the Milwaukee Road was built 2-3 decades after the GN and NP they had access to "modern" earth moving equipment and could have build a superior alignment. I have never inspected the northern lines, but from you comments abour operating expense it appears that their alignment was inferior. Could this be that all the "good" valleys were already occupied or what. Could you expand on their quality of ROW?

Thanks
***

[gabe]

Mark,

If GE or EMD were significantly worse than the other, would one of them be a goner as well? You seemed to indicate in past posts, that locomotive manufacturers could hide under the price umberella of the superior manufactuer. Why can't rail lines do this as well--especially when you consider that many have captive customers?

Is it that the excess capacity of the superior line makes the price umberella non-existant? When the Rio Grande--good choice for a favorite railroad--was in business, didn't it compete well against competitors (at times, I realize), even though today most everyone would seem to acknowledge it was the inferior route? Are there regulatory forces at work here to explain this phenomenon?

Does this mean several of the Omaha - Chicago lines better start mortgaging their future--as well as either CSX's or NS's Chicago-New York main?

Say it ain't so, Say it aint' so.

Gabe

[railman]

What a great website. Those are well written and entertaining stories. Makes you wonder what could have been, if only things could have held out just a few more years...when cross country intermodal could have ressurrected the fast line of the Milwaukee. Among other things.

[fuzzybroken]

Wow, great topic! I think that the Milwaukee's birth, expansion, and eventual death is one of the most fascinating railroad stories ever. Though I really don't remember much of the Milwaukee Road, most of my "memories" and knowledge have come vicariously through my brother, 12 years older than me, who is now a conductor on the Milwaukee Road... err, Canadian Pacific. (strangely, though, I do remember seeing on the news about the shutdown of the Rock Island when I was about 3 years old)

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton

CSS-Probably right on there. I have a 1923 Map of rail lines in Wisconsin prepared for the WI Railroad Commission showing the MILW all over the place, including the branch that ran through the property that later became my family farm. Abandoned in 1943, the ROW is still there, used as a smowmobile trail. Interestingly, the ROW is still listed on property rolls as CMStP&P ownership. Keep meaning to do more research on the actual ownership. Calls to CP and CN got responses that amounted to big ? mark. Is it hallowed ground or something? I'll give the forum updates if I solve the mystery.

Jay

Jay,

Where is this branch? I have recently become interested in an old MILW branch that ran from the "first Wisconsin rail line" (currently the Wisconsin & Southern's mainline from Waukesha to Milton Jct.) at Eagle to the old Racine & Southwestern at Elkhorn (currently the junction of the WSOR Elkhorn branch and the White River State Trail). It ran through Troy Center, and also had two other stations (?) at Mayhew and Pecks.

I found this line in SPV's Atlas and roughly traced the line in the DeLorme Atlas, and even found a road called Peck Station Road! I would be interested in finding out more about this line, when it was abandoned, and what the purpose of the line was. I also noticed a quarry near the r-o-w.

Thanks!
-Mark Hintz
http://www.geocities.com/fuzzybroken

[jeffhergert]

For what it''s worth, there are a few articles and books out there (CTC Board March 2000 issue, I think) that alledge manipulations of costs and revenue to purposely make the Puget Sound extension look bad.
Also, the Omaha mainline was originally in the first reorganization plan. The Kansas City line was to be abandoned. This changed before the 1980 cut back. I don't know why the change, but my guess is 2 fold. First, the U S Government was pumping 4-R money into the CNW at the time. Second, the Rock Island was going completely out of business. The RI and MILW both operated lines from the Quad Cities to Kansas City, sharing trackage on both ends. The MILW picked up a lot of business. One MILW employe told me they couldn't understand how the RI went bankrupt. He said at the time (early 80's), the business the MILW picked up in the Quad Cities, Muscatine and the line to Iowa City (now IAIS) was bringing in half the revenue for the entire MILW core system.
Jeff

[Anonymous]

Good stories. As a Milwaukee Road employee for over 12 years I appreciate the comments. I worked in the Engineering Department for 10 years, first at the division offices in Savanna, ILlinois and Aberdeen, South Dakota and then in the corporate headquarters in Chicago. Later I was in the real estate department until the end.

One correction Mark. The Milwauke Road line from Chicago to Omaha did not go through the quad cities. That was the Rock Island now Iowa Interstate. The Milwaukee Road main line missed the big cities and crossed the Mississippi river at Savanna between Clinton and Dubuque.

Because the Milwaukee west coast line paralleled the NP for long distances across Montana, I had thought it would have been better to combine the NP with the Milwaukee instead of the GN. By eliminating the duplication, both the NP/Milwaukee combination and the GN might have made it as separate railroads. Because of the common ownership of the GN and NP that was probably not practical. The BN did acquire and I believe it still operates the Milwaukee line between Minneapolis and Terry, Montana. Except within the cities, most of the track west of Terry was eliminated.

I was at the closing of the sale of the eastern remainder of the Milwaukee lines to the Soo Line in 1985. We got court approval late in the afternoon and about 40 or 50 of us from both companies met and worked into the night. We delivered the deeds to the Soo Line just about midnight.

Larry

[jeaton]

Mark (fb)

My property is north in Lincoln County. That branch ran from the Valley Line (exWC now CN) at Irma east to Gleason then south east through our property to a spot in northern Marathon County. Since I now live in Delavan I am familiar with the area that you are looking at, but haven't tried to do any ROW locating for that line.

Jay

[Anonymous]

Thanks Mark. I often wondered why UP did not make a run at Milwaukee to give them coverage directly east from Seattle instead of through Salt Lake City. Their more circuitous route through SLC apparently was cheaper to operate than the Milwaukee.

***

[Anonymous]

Since I've given up trying to find my copy of "Milwaukee Road West", I'll post a few observations regarding Milwaukee's Puget Sound extension.

It is true that the Milwaukee profile from Minneapolis to Harlowtown MT was and is still the best of the Northwest transcons. Even the route west out of Harlowtown to Lombard MT had only a 1.4% westbound and 1% eastbound ruling grade, and was a situation where the Milwaukee took advantage of an existing rail grade of the Montana Central to cut down on construction costs.

However, from Lombard on west to Puget Sound one can only scratch one's head at the thoughts of the locating engineers. Instead of taking either the easiest route south-southwest along the Jefferson and Big Hole Rivers to Deer Lodge Pass (el 5901', used by UP for it's Butte line) OR following the Boulder River to Basin MT and then paralleling GN's Butte extension over Elk Park Pass (el 6368', westbound grade 1%), the Milwaukee instead built a convaluted line over Pipestone Pass (el 6453') at a 1.9% grade to reach Butte. Granted, the Pipestone Pass route was the shortest, but if you are going to build a railroad with the easiest possible alignment for 1000 miles from Minnesota, at least keep a consistent philosophy and stay that course!

Also, it was well known at the time that the next lowest crossing of the Continental Divide (after GN's Marias Pass) in Montana was over Rogers Pass (el 5610') southwest of Great Falls. Although also slightly out of the way, it still would have made more sense for the Milwaukee to take this alignment than the chosen route over Pipestone Pass through Butte, but possibly Milwaukee saw mineral transportation from the Butte mines as a potential money maker.

After that first line locating fiasco around Butte, the Milwaukee's line from Butte to Missoula (paralleling the NP) had a real nice alignment. Instead of taking the logical route over Lolo Pass (el 5235') which would have given the Milwaukee an entire region all to itself and allowed them a water level grade all the way to the coast, they chose to head toward Spokane WA again competing with NP and GN, and took another illogical line location to not quite get there. Although the line over St Paul Pass had ruling grades of only 1.7%, the curvature and expensive construction/maintenance of all the trestles and tunnels had to kill them financially as well as kill any hope for speed freights. Then to top if off, they bypassed Spokane to the south and instead built a redundant line into Spokane and purchased trackage rights over UP to reconnect with the mainline at Marengo WA.

Still, up to that point the steepest grade was only 1.9%. Then they chose a difficult (but shorter) route over the Saddle Mountains at 2.2% to Ellensburg WA, and again paralleled NP until NP's line turned to the south over Stampede Pass. It should be credited to Milwaukee that their line over the Cascades was the best of the three transcons, with a ruling westbound grade of 1% and eastbound grade of 1.7% (compared to NP's and GN's lines with their 2.2% grades over Stampede and Stevens Pass respectively), at least until GN built the 8 mile Cascade Tunnel in the 1920's (but even then GN still had to deal with 2.2% grades). Also, the Milwaukee erred in not securing the North Bank of the Columbia River Gorge before James Hill got his hands on it, thereby eliminating the possibility of reaching the Coast with a water level grade from Idaho on west.

The Milwaukee could have kept their westbound ruling grade at 1% and eastbound ruling grades at 1.7% or less simply utilizing the established geographical knowledge base available at the the time of the construction, which would have given them the upper hand in securing the lowest operating costs of the three transcons. Why they did not follow that protocol is one for the books. If they had, the Milwaukee (or at least the Milwaukee's alignment) would still be in use today.

[arbfbe]

Dave,
Nice analysis but there are a few problems there concerning Montana.
The MILW knew about Rogers pass and had a plan to build there. The long term plan was to connect the line west out of Great Falls with the line east out of Bonner to allow grain from northern Montana to move west to the Pacific Coast without going first to Harlowtown. Much of the row for US200 is on alignments owned by the MILW but forfeited to the state of MT during bankruptcy proceedings.

Lolo Pass would be quite an engineering feat and when you got to the west side the valley was already occupied by the NP lines which became part of the Camas Prairie. The north side of the canyon was occupied by that line and the south side by the road. The MILW would have had to found another route off the pass.

The MILW alignment over St Paul Pass was aligned for the construction of a tunnel between Bryson, MT and Adair, ID which would have eliminated much of the mountain grade and heavy snow areas. The tunnel would have been about 7 miles long and no one had built one that long when the MILW was building in 1908. The dream was still there to build that tunnel but bankruptcies kept moving that back until it never happened.

The limiting factor for the GN mainline is the Flathead Tunnel in western Montana. The number of trains run through it in a day is determined by the length of time it takes to flu***he diesel exhaust out of it. There are times trains have to wait before being allowed to enter and until improvements are made like higher capacity horsepower fans, the GN main is closer to max capacity than other factors would indicate. Milw was able to generate four thru trains a day over the transcon following the BN merger so the argument would boil down as to whether or not that was enough revenue to support that track or not. Whether or not the original construction made any sense or not once the line was in it was a matter of what the traffic generated could support. Given today's intermodal market there would appear to be enough traffic for the UP, GN and MILW mainlines to survive. The BN/BNSF would have abandoned the NP lines west of Laurel by now in order to feed the GN main giving the MILW a shot at all that NP traffic.

Alan

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by arbfbe

Dave,
Nice analysis but there are a few problems there concerning Montana.
The MILW knew about Rogers pass and had a plan to build there. The long term plan was to connect the line west out of Great Falls with the line east out of Bonner to allow grain from northern Montana to move west to the Pacific Coast without going first to Harlowtown. Much of the row for US200 is on alignments owned by the MILW but forfeited to the state of MT during bankruptcy proceedings.

Lolo Pass would be quite an engineering feat and when you got to the west side the valley was already occupied by the NP lines which became part of the Camas Prairie. The north side of the canyon was occupied by that line and the south side by the road. The MILW would have had to found another route off the pass.

The MILW alignment over St Paul Pass was aligned for the construction of a tunnel between Bryson, MT and Adair, ID which would have eliminated much of the mountain grade and heavy snow areas. The tunnel would have been about 7 miles long and no one had built one that long when the MILW was building in 1908. The dream was still there to build that tunnel but bankruptcies kept moving that back until it never happened.

The limiting factor for the GN mainline is the Flathead Tunnel in western Montana. The number of trains run through it in a day is determined by the length of time it takes to flu***he diesel exhaust out of it. There are times trains have to wait before being allowed to enter and until improvements are made like higher capacity horsepower fans, the GN main is closer to max capacity than other factors would indicate. Milw was able to generate four thru trains a day over the transcon following the BN merger so the argument would boil down as to whether or not that was enough revenue to support that track or not. Whether or not the original construction made any sense or not once the line was in it was a matter of what the traffic generated could support. Given today's intermodal market there would appear to be enough traffic for the UP, GN and MILW mainlines to survive. The BN/BNSF would have abandoned the NP lines west of Laurel by now in order to feed the GN main giving the MILW a shot at all that NP traffic.

Alan

I think what you are refering to regarding Milwaukees knowledge of Rogers Pass was a plan for a secondary main from Harlowtown to Missoula via Great Falls. The question I have is if Milwaukee knew of Rogers Pass during the initial planning for the Pacific Coast Extension, why did they choose the Butte route? I think part of the problem was the lure of taking over the right of way of the Montana Central from Harlowtown to Lombard (which would cut down on initial construction costs). This action kind of redirected the line in a WSW direction toward Butte. If the Milwaukee had not gotten the deed for this line, it is likely they would have rerouted farther north through Great Falls for the initial line.

The Lolo Pass option would have required a number of unavoidable ess curves/trestles/tunnels to make it from the summit down to the Locsha River valley on the west side, similar to what they did on the West side of St Paul Pass. However, they would have had the river grade all to themselves for 100 miles unitl they came to Kooskia ID where the Camas Prairie rails were, and could have taken the opposite side of the river from CPR for their own line, as the roads were not constructed in the canyon until the 1920's. At the time of the Milwaukee's westward construction there was room in the Clearwater River canyon for two railroads, but not much more. If they had managed to secure the North Bank of the Columbia Gorge before James Hill snatched it up, it is likely they would have chosen the Lolo Pass alignment.

Long tunnels are a problem, both then and now. Any resonable locating engineer at the time would have (or should have) selected a routing that would avoid the need for a longer summit tunnel in the future. The one great failing of GN Chief Engineer John Stevens was his selection of the Stevens Pass routing for the original GN line over the Cascades, rather than going over an available Snoquailmie Pass which the Milwaukee eventually chose for it's Cascade crossing.

[Anonymous]

The Milwaukee Road was another of those roads like the Rock Island that had too much competition wherever it went. It had the Q to Omaha, Santa Fe to Kansas City, and the CNW and Q to Minneapolis.

One could make a case that it shouldn't have gone west of the Twin Cities; indeed, one could almost make a case that it shouldn't have gone west of Milwaukee - or maybe that it shouldn't have gone anywhere.

But that would have left us bereft of things like the Hiawatha passenger trains, "reduce to 100 MPH over the EJ&E crossing at Rondout", Little Joes, the Puget Sound line, horizontal ribs on boxcars, cabooses, passenger cars, and some of those tenders, "Fast Fifteen" and all the great lore surrounding the Milwaukee Road.

And it would have left me without about fourteen years of employment . . .

We're all better off for its having been here - fans, ex-employees, etc., but I wonder if it really made any difference in the grand scheme of things . . .

Old Timer

[jeaton]

I agree, maybe not in the grand scheme, but for the people in the area where I grew up, The Milwaukee's Valley Line and branches were a life line for goods in and out, and travel during the first half of the 20th Century. Somebody would have laid that track, what the hey, it might as well have been them.

Jay

[dldance]

Why did the Milwaukee choose to go to Butte? In the early 1900's when routing decisions were being made, Butte Montana was the richest inland city in North America. 30% of the copper mined in the US came out of Buttes mines and at that point the mines were shipping about 300 million pounds of copper a year. The copper was produced for free as the ore produced sufficient silver, lead, zinc, and gold to pay for the mining and smelting. In 1910, 16,000 carloads a month were being shipped into Butte. The mines employeed more than 12,000 men and required about 65 million board feet of timber and 4 million pounds of explosives every year -- all of which moved by rail. At it's peak, Butte was served by 38 passenger trains a day. Yes, the locating engineers followed the lay of the land as best they could -- but they also followed the money!

dd

Statistics reference, Union Pacific: Montana Division, by Thornton Waite, 1998.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dldance

Why did the Milwaukee choose to go to Butte? In the early 1900's when routing decisions were being made, Butte Montana was the richest inland city in North America. 30% of the copper mined in the US came out of Buttes mines and at that point the mines were shipping about 300 million pounds of copper a year. The copper was produced for free as the ore produced sufficient silver, lead, zinc, and gold to pay for the mining and smelting. In 1910, 16,000 carloads a month were being shipped into Butte. The mines employeed more than 12,000 men and required about 65 million board feet of timber and 4 million pounds of explosives every year -- all of which moved by rail. At it's peak, Butte was served by 38 passenger trains a day. Yes, the locating engineers followed the lay of the land as best they could -- but they also followed the money!

dd

Statistics reference, Union Pacific: Montana Division, by Thornton Waite, 1998.

Two things: Not all those carloads were moved by the Milwaukee. The Great Northern, Union Pacific, and Northern Pacific were also in Butte competing for those 16,000 carloads, and the Milwaukee was the last man in. Assuming an even split, that's only 4,000 carloads a month for Milwaukee, not enough to justify skewing the mainline "off course" so to speak, with the obtruse profile convulusions and operating difficulties. Since the competitors accessed Butte via branch lines and secondary mainlines, wouldn't have made more sense for Milwaukee to do the same?

Secondly, the ostensible purpose of the Pacific Coast Extension was to access the Pacific Northwest ports for the volumous trade traffic, not to access mines that would eventually play out. If you're going to build a transcon and you're the third man in a two man race, you better build it with easier grades, less curvature, and shorter mileage than your competitors, else you're left with the scraps that fall off the table. If you can accompli***he task of making your route superior to your competitors while accessing new markets along the route, great, but don't ruin the transcon for the sake of accessing an off course market that already has three other lines competing for the limited carloads.

[eolafan]

A bit off the main MLW subject but I fondly remember moving to Wausau, WI in 1974 and getting my first taste of Midwestern railroading with the MLW Valley Line into and out of Wausau (ran up to the Soo connection?). We had a roundhouse in Wausau (since demolished I believe) and power was typically a mix of F units, older Geeps, and a few older GE U-boats. Newer power in the form of some 300 series GP38's arrived shortly before I moved to Chicago in 1978. The CNW was also in town but MLW was the real show. Soo in Stevens Point was a real kick for me as they had some newer power and ran faster on their main line than MLW did on the Valley Line. Well, it all culminated in my move to Chicago, THE railroad town of all time. Another eight year stint in MD (Northeast Corridor action) and Philadelphia metro (lots of NEC action there as well) then back in Chicago metro for the past 14 plus years and loving it. I really do miss the Milwaukee Road though, a great road to railfan!

[jeffhergert]

at least one member of the MILW's board of directors had ties to the Butte area. This may have influenced the location of the route.
Jeff

[arbfbe]

Butte certainly was served by railroads before the Milwaukee got there but all of the other lines were branch lines. For the GN and UP Butte was the end of the line, for the NP the tracks were on a secondary line primarily built for passenger service. The MILW built their MAINLINE through town. Turn of the century Montana still had lots of room for development but Butte was the only town in the state with a major industrial industrial base other than logging. There was also the connection of the Rockefeller interests in Standard Oil, the Anaconda Company, the Milwaukee and Montana Power Co. While reaching the coast ports was the goal when the company building the railroad also held major financial interests in Butte it would seem unlikely they would bypass that town. In 1905 or so when the preliminary routes were being chosen, the age of copper was in it's infancy. The growth of Butte was probably viewed as being unlimited. Through MILW board members who also sat on the boad of the ACM, the MILW likely had access to mineral surveys of the Butte area and had a good idea of the copper volumes that the mines in Butte could produce. Once the route in eastern Montana was set there were few options to pursue in western Montana. The Clark Fork River, the Bitterroot River and the Swan River all have valleys that run north/south in the mountains. The populations in the state were concentrated along these courses and it would make some sense to get into the water way chosen as early as possible to tap as much of that population as possible. The Clark Fork river was the most populated and the Swan River/Blackfoot rivers at the base of Rogers Pass were the least populous. The Clark Fork River Valley became the best choice for the MILW to recover some of the building expenses with a developed industrial base. Butte was at the headwaters. Though the NP already had the customers staked out, I am sure there were many customers who welcomed the MILW into town to moderate the rates the NP was charging.

The other limiting factor is the lack of population on the Idaho side of many of the passes out of Montana. East Central Idaho is to this day mostyl wilderness with few roads let along cities to connect to. The UP had branchlines in the area to serve the traffic that was already there. Options were severely limited. One would have to look at the port situation in the early 1900s to see where the volumes were. Using the Columbia River north bank to reach Portland may have not seemed as attractive to the MILW if Seattle was the port with the higher volumes. Portland's growth as a seaport was dependant upon the dredging below town to allow deeper drafts to make it competitive with the deepwater moorings in Seattle.

[Anonymous]

Well, hindsight is 20/20. The other "excuses" I've read regarding Milwaukees route choices had similar airs of manipulation due to either a perceived online market penetration, or an existing small railroad ripe for takeover that could be utilized as part of the main.

The route over St Paul Pass and down the St Joe River valley was ostensibly to access the timber stands there. Might have worked, unfortunately most of that timber burned up in the Great Fires of 1910-1911, all that was left was salvage timber. In hindsight, Milwaukee's actions of avoiding a more logical line routing to acess this timber base was a failure.

Regarding the Butte question, you have to remember that the other lines (GN, NP, and UP) could afford to "subsidize" their rates out of the Butte basin because their primary mainlines had less expensive operations and more traffic to pay the overhead. The Milwaukee might have made some revenue from locating their mainline into Butte, but this was wiped out by the unnecessarily higher operating costs ascribed to their transcon trains.

Again in hindsight, it would have made more sense for Milwaukee to route the mainline farther north out of Forsyth MT toward Great Falls, having the line situated south of the Missouri River and north of the Little Belt and Big Snowy mtns. This would have allowed the grades to stay under 1% eastbound and westbound until the approach to the Continental Divide at Rogers Pass was undertaken. Once that was accomplished(the line down the Lincoln valley roughly parallel to Montana Highway 200 today), it would have been easy to constuct a 90 mile branch line south to Butte via the Deer Lodge Valley. (This line would have roughly paralleled Montana Highway 141 to Avon then along the eventually chosen route past Deer Lodge).

Now regarding the rest of the way west, whether or not the North Bank of the Columbia Gorge could have been secured or not, it still would have made more sense to go over Lolo Pass and maintain the water level grade advantages until the Cascades were reached. Again, the ostensible reason MIlwaukee avoided this route was that they did not want to be "trapped in a box canyon, unable to branch out into the timber and agricultural markets" in North Central Idaho. Hmmmm, the same box canyon didn't stop the NP and UP to do that very thing from the west via the co-owned Camas Prairie Railroad. Since the Camas Prairie was already up and running when the Milwaukee was building west, they easily could have seen that the ability to branch out out of the Clearwater River Valley would not be a difficulte task. The timber resources available in North Central Idaho were just as vast (if not more so) as those in the St Joe River Valley. The MIlwaukee DID build a branch south to reach these timber lands a few years later, so one has to question why they would locate as they eventually did. As I mentioned before, there was always a right of way available on the opposite side of the Clearwater River canyon from the Camas Prairie line, so accessabilty wasn't an issue.

The greatest advantage of building over Lolo Pass and down the Clearwater River Valley was that Milwaukee would have been the only mainline through this area. Contrast this with it's line just south of Spokane and its secondary main into Spokane. Spokane already had three Class I mainlines and UP's secondary international connection. Instead of building online market autonomy in conjunction with a superior mainline alignment, the Milwaukee chose a more convaluted route in competition with four other Class I's.

As I mentioned before, the Milwaukee's one saving grace was the choice of locating the Cascade crossing at Snoqualmie Pass with it's gentle westbound grades of under 1%. If they would have located the eastern approaches to the Saddle Mountain crossing a little farther south, they could have avoided the 2.2% grades over the Saddle Mountains. A line coming out of the Snake River valley would have logically allowed this more southern and less steep approach to the Saddle Mountain crossing.

Think of it. If the Milwaukee would have taken the more logical routings and avoided the manipulations of some of its directors, they would have had the ONLY northern transcon line with all it's westbound grades under 1%! This might have forestalled the expensive need to electrify parts of it's lines, and would have made the Northern Pacific the odd man out in terms of line operating quality. Food for thought.