Recently took some shots from Lavina MT thru to Two Dot MT. Bridges, and some signals still present. (for now)
The museum in Harlowton is a must see, the collection is growing, and the management consists of former Milwaukee Road employees.
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/2013/07/milwaukee-road-mainline-from-lavina.html
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/
Fascinating photos, thanks for posting.
A thought: Maybe the Harlowton Museum folks should recover those left-behind rails on the old mainline and cut them into souvenir sections, say three or four inches across, mount small plaques on them saying they're pieces of the old Milwaukee Road Montana mainline and sell them in the gift shop if they've got one.
The reason I bring this up is there's a small museum of local history in my hometown of Paramus NJ that did the same thing with some old Public Service trolley tracks that surfaced after some local construction. I should know, I bought one!
At the very least, they'll get those rails before the scrap vultures do.
The historic sign said the station and roundhouse remain. Was the "roundhouse" the large wood building among the station photos? (motor shed?)
Geared Steam The museum in Harlowton is a must see, the collection is growing, and the management consists of former Milwaukee Road employees.
That bothers me. It seems to me that the greatest challenge facing smaller museums and tourist operations is transferring enthusiasm for what they have to generations that never saw their collections in everyday use. Most of the ex-Milwaukee employees have to be getting up there in age, so what happens to Harlowton and similar places when they are gone?
They've got to make believers out of the rising generation. Not easy, but it can be done. Possibly they can start by putting feelers out to any local model railroad clubs who I'm sure have Milwaukee Road fans as members. A good place to start.
Looking at all the "Fallen Flag" models put out by the model railroad industry I'm sure the interest is there. These models are being sold to people who at this late date can't possibly have any memories of the original 'roads.
"Roundhouse"
Firelock76Maybe the Harlowton Museum folks should recover those left-behind rails on the old mainline and cut them into souvenir sections, s
It did cross my mind, as you can see they recently laid a short length of track in front of the depot and have started to ballast. If you notice, the rail on the opposite side had concrete still inside of the rail web. I asked if they had pulled it out of a highway crossing somewhere, he replied they had pulled those rail out of the roundhouse floor. I did mention the rail that was laying at Lavina, at he seemed interested.
The museum does have rail spikes for sale, as well as leftover unused boxcar seals, t-shirts, books, etc.
Now that I think about it I should have bought up those seals.
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