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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by nanaimo73 [quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal CB&Q lines though Wyoming were little more than poor cousins to C&NW's Cowboy Line. And NP and GN had a preference for the MIlwaukee over CB&Q for the Chicago connection, leaving CB&Q shorthanded. So what's so hard to comprehend about Hill treating NP and CB&Q poorly? [/quote] James J Hill did not treat the Burlington poorly. He expanded it to the Twin Cities and Texas. I doubt the C&NW line to Lander was in better shape than the CB&Q's Wyoming lines. The CB&Q was a Granger, probably the best Granger, and had a mainline between Chicago and Denver. The Billings and Twin Cities lines (although double track) were appendages, and not the core, of the Burlington. [/quote] So, the CB&Q had the dichotomy of a mainline that was no better than a bridge line for non-Hill lines, or "appendages" in Wyoming that could feed the other Hill lines but were not of mainline quality. Yep, that JJ Hill was one brilliant railroader! Wouldn't you think that if Hill had any regard for the CB&Q, he'd of used it soley for the NP and GN connections to Chicago, not the MIlwaukee or the CN&W? Consider this: If the 7 mile Cascade Tunnel were transposed somehow down to the NP over Stampede, the NP would have then had the best profile of all the Cascade crossings, better than even the Milwaukee's Snoqualmie Pass line. Since Hill had no bonds tied to land grants related to the GN, he could have easily ditched the GN line through the State of Washington in deference to an upgraded NP line, with GN having trackage rights. Now, if you're the owner of both lines, and you really don't care which one gets used the most, only that both pull their own weight, why wouldn't a real railroader have done exactly what I suggest here? Are you going to come on this forum and claim that Hill didn't have a bias in favor of the GN?
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