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Mark,First of all, let me say that I appreciate the tone of your latest response, very professional.Now back to some points made.....On the GN Boulder River gradient vs the Milwaukee's and NP's St. Regis River gradients - the purpose of that comparison is to show that a westbound Elk Park Pass line could have avoided the steeper gradient.  Both the GN along Boulder River and the NP along the St. Regis River closely followed the watercourse.  The Milwaukee started their dedicated St. Paul Pass grade prematurely in a way, prefering to access the mountainsides and a 1.7% grade to reach the east portal of St. Paul Pass, rather than staying along the river like the NP did with a 0.8% grade only to have to start a steeper grade as their respective passes were reached.  Remember also that at one time the NP considered using Lookout Pass (just a few miles away from St. Paul Pass) as a mainline if the proposed tunnel were ever built, which would have reduced the ruling grade from 4% to 2.2%, so it's not necessarily an apples and oranges comparison.  The bottom line - both NP and Milwaukee could have used Elk Park Pass and kept the westbound grades under 2.0% if they had chosen.  The eastbound grades may still have been over 2.0% if it was determined to build down into Butte proper, rather than bypassing Butte by staying along the mountainsides with a more gradual grade down to Deer Lodge.  Yes, that type of eastbound grade was steeper than Mullan's eastbound grade of 1.4%, but therein lies my original point of using Mullan eastbound and Elk Park westbound in modern times with the appropriate line adjustments to correct the inherent flaws of the original construction.Remember also that Pipestone Pass proper is about 100' higher in elevation than Elk Park Pass, so the argument that the Milwaukee would have experienced steeper grades over Elk Park than Pipestone doesn't wash.  As I stated before, Milwaukee could have cut across the Warm Springs Creek plateau straight west from Lombard to the Boulder Valley, then accessed the mountainsides on the south side of the valley to keep the ruling grade under 2.0%.  Milwaukee's Pipestone Pass line didn't even enter Butte proper, reaching into Butte with a short spur line, so it seems to have not been an overriding factor to dip down into Butte if the Elk Park Pass route had been chosen.  Thus, it is very likely the Milwaukee could have had a CD crossing with no summit tunnel, grades at least as good as the 1.66% eastbound and under 2.0% westbound, less approach curvature, and no increase in transcon mileage.Since Elk Park Pass is actually lower than Pipestone, there is no logic to assume a Milwaukee line over Elk Park Pass to have 2.2% grades both ways compared to Pipestone's 1.66% and 2.0%.Why the railroad management chose the routes they did is purely subjective - no one was perfect in their choice of alignments, not even JJ Hill.  Why did GN choose Stevens Pass over the known Snoqualmie Pass?  Why did the Milwaukee choose to cross the Columbia at Beverly (with the subsequent need for a 2.2% westbound grade to reach the Kittitas Valley) rather than farther south near White Bluffs, which would have allowed a gentler grade over the Saddles?  Why did NP chose Mullan over Deer Lodge, Pipestone, or any other pass?  It would appear that the necessary construction techniques to allow a well engineered mountainside grade were not as apparent then as they were a few decades later when the Milwaukee came calling.  Even so, if indeed Elk Park Pass was a known quantity then someone must have thought a line through Helena was of greater concern than a line without the need of a summit tunnel.To assume an infallibility of the made choices is not a reasonable approach.  Those folks were obviously very fallible much if not most of the time.Back to modern times, as Gabe stated in his topic starter, there is a logic to analyzing which lost routes today would prove valuable if the forefathers of railroading had the necessary vision.  For a line through the heart of Montana, Mullan strictly eastbound and Elk Park strictly westbound (with a few miles of realigments, not as originally built) makes sense.  One needs only to watch a westbound MRL freight try to tackle  Mullan's 2.2% grade, the two reverse curves, and the engine choking tunnel to realize that such things still have a lot of room for improvement.
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