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[quote user="n012944"][quote user="futuremodal"][quote user="Chris30"] My meaining of "[t]he Milwaukee Pacific Extension suffered going to Seattle" was just another way of saying that it's not there anymore. I was trying to make the point that if one midwest grainger couldn't keep a pacific extension going to Seattle (or is it really Tacoma?), a major US city, then what realistic expectations could one have of a Northwestern pacific extension to places such as Eureka or Coos Bay? Would either of those places become a major shipping port if a transcon were built there?? If you want to dream a little and suggest that the Northwestern would have been better with a pacific extension, then without it; I agree. Maybe. I'm not thinking about how successful the Northwestern would have been if they reached the ocean that's called the Pacific as much as I'm thinking about the ocean of coal in Wyoming that now is commonly reffered to as the Powder River Basin. Here's where the guessing game begins... How would the pacific extension have changed the Northwestern financial status? Would the pacific extension still exist or be in good shape into the 1970's when the PRB came into existence? The "Cowboy" line through Nebraska would have been a main line. Could it have been useable for the PRB trains, thus avoiding the UP's assistance? Talk about your history mind-benders! If the Milwaukee PCE was so succesful, then why didn't any other western railroad assume control when the Milwaukee Road pulled out? CC [/quote]   They tried.  The bankruptcy trustee opted for abandonment even in the face of the long haul vs short haul realities, and there were several offers to continue operating the PCE, including a group that eventually created MRL.  It is all well explained in the "What happened to the Milwaukee?" thread.[/quote]   I hate to get back into this, however the offers for the PCE were all ruled by the ICC as being underfunded, in the end no one who could afford the PCE wanted it.  The only reason the PCE was built was because when the Hill lines bought the Burlington, the MILW lost a lot of interchange traffic at the Twin Cites. They thought they could get the traffic and haul it back to Chicago themselves. However as time proved 3 railroads where 1 too many, so just think what 4 would have been like.  It would have been like Iowa in the 60's/70's, too many railroads competing for too little traffic.  If the CNW would have gone all the way to the Pacific coast, it too would have ended up like the MILW.  I await the bashing from the PCE lovers.[B)][/quote] Well, this is pretty easy to refute.  You are avering, not just speculating, so you must have a crystal ball into a future parallel universe.  As stated previously, any success or failure of a CNW transcon would have depended more on both the corporate mentality of CNW's owners and the profile of the alignment.  Just being the second or last player into the field does not predicate such to failure. The original Milwaukee PCE alignment was superior to the original GN alignment, as well as the NP and UP lines.  It wasn't until the Cascade Tunnel was built in 1929 that GN's route achieved an improved enough alignment that could challenge the PCE for superiority.  Even then, the PCE was still better by consensus that either the NP or UP lines into the PNW, so just having a superior alignment doens't guarantee continuation, and having a deficient alignment doesn't guarantee failure, otherwise the NP and UP lines would have disappeared long ago.  Milwaukee's PCE demise was purely managerial shortcomings abetted by political intrusions. The CNW transcon would have traversed a marketplace that only had one railroad serving it in Southern Idaho, so the addition of a second player would not have diluted the market as you aver.  It is likely the CNW line through the midsection of Eastern Oregon would have had a better profile than UP's Blue Mountain crossing, but that advantage would have been lost in the comparative lines to the Willamette Valley, as UP had the water level crossing through the Gorge, while a CNW line would have had some major mountiain grades to deal with.  From here, the comparitive Oregon profile comparison looks like a draw. You cannot judge what a CNW transcon would have amounted to based on the simpleton's analysis of the Milwaukee PCE retrenchment.  Yes, it is easier to just assume that the best lines stayed while the worst lines left, but that's obviously not how the real world of railroading works.  Success or failure of a railroad alignment has more to do with externalities that are out of context with physical operational characteristics.  That seems to be the American way.
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