The Milwaukee Road

[Erik_Mag]

IIRC, Mark's screen name is VerMontanan.

The last hope for at least a segment of the PCE, was traffic from the coal mines that were under consideration in the Roundup area. Two strikes against it were the deferred maintenance on the line and the 30% severance tax Montana imposed on coal shipped out of state. The Milw line from Roundup to Miles City/Terry was shorter than the BNSF line built recently, as well as having better grades.

A more recent devlopment that would have benefitted from the PCE being saved is a mine planned for the White Sulphur Springs area.

As for a combined NP/Milw, perhaps the best way to have bypassed Bozeman pass would have been extending NP's Shield River branch to close to Ringling on the Milwaukee mainline west of the summit.

[Fred M Cain]

You know, to fully express my feelings if I may, I have always felt that the loss of the MILW PCE was a dirty shame.  However, in recent years as I have thought over this more and more, the whole thing just makes me plain angry and very angry at that.

 

I feel like the managers of both the BN and the MILW failed us and I also feel very strongly that our government “leaders” (both at the federal and state level) also let us down.

 

If nothing else, the line could have been mothballed with the rails and all related infrastructure left in place. But that didn’t happen either.  If only the states of Montana, Idaho & Washington would’ve paid the MILW managers scrap value for the line, they would’ve probably accepted it.

 

But no.  We burned our bridges behind us.  I feel like our government leaders owe us something for this debacle.  If rebuilding the line really is impossible then they should at least invest the money to do a study on it and prove what the benefits would be or not be. There are really two very different kinds of benefits involved with a project like this.   One is economic and the other is social.  It’s much easier to get a handle on the economic costs and benefit ratio than it is on any possible social advantages.

 

Regards,

Fred M. Cain

[Fred M Cain]

MP173

This thread brings back great memories of the forum 10-12 years ago when there was very intense discussions of all things rail.  Michael Sol's mention in the article was warrented.  He was passionate about the PCE and seemed to be a wealth of information about not only that route but the industry in general.  Sadly, he and others were pushed off the forum.  <SNIP>

Ed

 

Ed & et al,

 

what happened to Michael Sol, anyways?  Is he still around?  Why was he "pushed off" the forum?  Or, did he simply stop participating in it?  Many people have abandoned forums like this one for facebook and other "social media"

 

Regards,

Fred M. Cain

[Overmod]

Fred M Cain

what happened to Michael Sol, anyways?

In case no one else answers:  I believe he is still active in posts commenting on some of the blogs here.  He either got tired of the reception he commonly received when posting what he considered (and he was almost always right) superior knowledge and study of the historical situation, or got in 'one too many' contentious arguments with other posters and was given moderation or perhaps an outright ban, perhaps during one of the previous eras of 'over-moderation' (I will not name the names).

I'm sure those more familiar with the situation know better details.

[zardoz]

jeffhergert

The cost of environmental impact reports alone would probably be astronomical. 

If the ROW is still in existence, and is not privately owned (especially if the railroad still owns it), why would there need to be a further IES, except, as you say, to enrich the lawyers?

[zardoz]

Fred M Cain

what happened to Michael Sol, anyways?  Is he still around? 

His name is referenced at the bottom of this article: http://www.trainweb.org/milwaukee/article.html

 

[zardoz]

Overmod

I believe he is still active in posts commenting on some of the blogs here.  He either got tired of the reception he commonly received when posting what he considered (and he was almost always right) superior knowledge and study of the historical situation, or got in 'one too many' contentious arguments with other posters

Ah, the good old days when this forum had many excellent, heated, contentious, and informative discussions; at least until the moderators threw their wet blanket over everything in order to keep things 'politically correct'.

[zardoz]

The PCE sure looks it would have been a very interesting and extremely challenging line to operate on.

[MidlandMike]

zardoz

 

 

jeffhergert

The cost of environmental impact reports alone would probably be astronomical. 

 

 

If the ROW is still in existence, and is not privately owned (especially if the railroad still owns it), why would there need to be a further IES, except, as you say, to enrich the lawyers?

 

 

At last an EA (environmental assessment) would need to be done to see if anything changed, such as new residental developement, industrial developement (the RR may have sold land for a factory across the ROW), a water project, etc.  The world has not stood still the last 40 years.

[Erik_Mag]

zardoz

The PCE sure looks it would have been a very interesting and extremely challenging line to operate on.

I don't think I would go that far...

Steepest grade on the mainline was 2.2% westbound out of the Columbia river valley, sharpest curves were 10 degrees and the summits had fairly decent vertical curves. Contrast this with the Espee's Siskiyou line with a 15 degree loop (Metam Sodium ring a bell?) and a sharp transition from a 3.3% ascending to a 3.3% descending grade.

Biggest challenge in the later years was dealing with deferred maintenance (where you may have a valid point about challenging).

My understanding about electric operations was that they were fairly routine. Keep in mind that the Milwaukee electrification was the first long electric line that featured regenerative braking. The regeneration was originally thought to be an energy saver, but the economic value of greatly reduced brake wear, the reduction in runaways and the ease of control downgrade far exceeded the reduction in energy costs.

[Convicted One]

Murphy Siding

Also note another forum member was quoted- Mark Meyer / VerMontnan(?)

That totally slipped by me. I must be getting old.

[Convicted One]

Overmod

, or got in 'one too many' contentious arguments with other posters

I used to enjoy reading posts by another member who called himself Poppa Zit,  although not because he was a fountain of knowledge. 

There is another guy around here who reminds me an awful lot of him.

[Samuel Johnston]

I have little knowledge other than what I've read here of the Puget Sound extension BUT, you can have good grades and curvature but IF you don't have the traffic there's no point to having a CMStP&P at all!  Horror stories of only one through freight a day each way are appalling.  There was an ancient and not very accurate muckraking book, "The Investor Pays", whose subject was the Milwaukee Road.  What business did the St. Paul expect to get for the line?  As for merging with the Erie ca. 1970--what traffic are you going to get?  Land bridges were years into the future unfortunately.

[Fred M Cain]

Group,

 

As of late I have been giving some serious thought to the idea of doing a website promoting the rebuilding of the Puget Sound Extension (PSE). That is actually an idea I have toyed with in the past.

 

Before everyone jumps on me to tell me what a stupid waste of time that would be, let me back up here a minute and explain something.

About 15-16 years ago I got the idea of having a website devoted to the theme of bringing back U.S. Route 66.  Route 66 was/is a truly great American icon that was “decommissioned” in a rather stupid, short sighted act in 1985.

 

I was told early on that this was a waste of time and Route 66 could never be brought back again.  I was only stupid and naïve.  Well, here we are 15 years later and things are happening.  Will Route 66 ever be an official “U.S.” highway again?  Quite possibly it will not. However, it looks more and more all the time like they are going to do something to address the signage issue – which was my main concern for bringing it back in the first place.

 

Now here we are 15 years later and I have come to feel like the Milwaukee PSE is in a similar position that Route 66 was in 15 years ago.  This will be no easy task but it is possible.  One Milwaukee aficionado deemed it “stupendous”.  Nothing in life that’s really worth doing is ever easy – or so it seems to me.

 

Here is my question to the forum:  How many people on this forum would like to see a website like that?  It at least gives us something to think about.  I am beginning to hatch a number of ideas.  This is not something that is going to happen this year or maybe not even next year.  But legislation is moving through Congress at a glacial pace that if it ever passes would establish Route 66 as a National Historic Trail.  If that were to pass, then I would consider that my efforts have met with at least some success.  I would then take the site down and replace it with a website devoted to the rebuilding of the PSE.

 

Stay tuned.

Regards,

Fred M. Cain.

 

P.S.  If you want to look at my current website simply “Google” for “Bring Back Route 66” and you will find it.  - FMC

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

With all due respects, the analogy between US 66 and the Puget Sound Extension is a poor one.  Historic Route 66 would require little more than specialized route signs as a designator while reinstating the Puget Sound Extension would be a major construction project.

[Backshop]

Fred, does this mean that you gave up on your "cause du jour" of a few months ago, restoring the NWP/making Eureka the next major Pacific container port?

[diningcar]

[quote user="Backshop"]

Fred, does this mean that you gave up on your "cause du jour" of a few months ago, restoring the NWP/making Eureka the next major Pacific container port?

 And the Phoenix - Welton UP line??

[Overmod]

Fred M Cain

Here is my question to the forum:  How many people on this forum would like to see a website like that?

Completely aside from the fact that there's at least eight orders of magnitude difference between 'restoring historic signage for parts of historical Route 66' and 'restoring the Puget Sound Extension' in toto to the standards modern operation would require...

What's the point of an 'advocacy' web site for an unfunded project for which you cannot identify a set of 'champions' with the business or financial ability to build a critical mass?  What it will be is, at best, a glorified railfan site.  I'm sure Michael Sol's collateral on the Pacific Coast Extension is far beyond anything that 'a website devoted to the rebuilding of the PSE' will likely contain, at least initially; how you get enough people to believe in it to build the necessary critical mass and then 'name recognition' otherwise is going to be extremely hard, and all the potential ways the effort might fail (and many are likely ways) ever-present and, like rust, never really sleeping.

[Overmod]

Fred M Cain

Here is my question to the forum:  How many people on this forum would like to see a website like that?

Completely aside from the fact that there's at least eight orders of magnitude difference between 'restoring historic signage for parts of historical Route 66' and 'restoring the Puget Sound Extension' in toto to the standards modern operation would require...

What's the point of an 'advocacy' web site for an unfunded project for which you cannot identify a set of 'champions' with the business or financial ability to build a critical mass?  What it will be is, at best, a glorified railfan site.  I'm sure Michael Sol's collateral on the Pacific Coast Extension is far beyond anything that 'a website devoted to the rebuilding of the PSE' will likely contain, at least initially; how you get enough people to believe in it to build the necessary critical mass and then 'name recognition' otherwise is going to be extremely hard, and all the potential ways the effort might fail (and many are likely ways) ever-present and, like rust, never really sleeping.

[Fred M Cain]

CSSHEGEWISCH

With all due respects, the analogy between US 66 and the Puget Sound Extension is a poor one.  Historic Route 66 would require little more than specialized route signs as a designator while reinstating the Puget Sound Extension would be a major construction project.

 

You are of course correct in that the logistics and construction of a new PSE would be very different than a re-signing of Route 66.  However, one analogy that I think is a good one, at present there are no websites devoted to the rebuilding of the PSE.  15 years ago, there were almost 200 websites either devoted to Route 66 or with some kind of a Route 66 theme. But absolutely NONE that promoted actually bringing the Route back.  So, I tried to fill a void there.  And as far as that goes, filling that void was successful.

 

The other analogy, which I already mentioned, is that both ideas at the time seemed so utterly impossible.  Rebuilding the PSE would be good for the Country.  I truly hold that as a conviction.  But, of course, I can't do that. I can't rebuild it. But I would at least try and do what I can.

 

I should also add here that the Milwaukee Road cannot be brought back to exactly the way it looked in 1955 - or even '65 or '70.  That truly IS impossible.  But perhaps something can be done.

 

Regards,

FMC

[Fred M Cain]

[quote user="diningcar"]

Backshop

Fred, does this mean that you gave up on your "cause du jour" of a few months ago, restoring the NWP/making Eureka the next major Pacific container port?

 And the Phoenix - Welton UP line??

 

 

First of all, I support the revival of the NWP line to Eureka.  That has not changed.  I believe it would benefit the residents of the North Coast.

 

However, I do not believe that I ever intended to do a website on the idea.  If I mentioned that it had to have been an "off the cuff" remark 'cause I have never thought of that.

And, there already IS a website for the Humbolt & Eastern RR so there's really no point and doing that.  However, there is no website devoted to the rebuilding of the PSE.

As for the Phoenix -Wellton line, there are already people working on that.  I don't see how I could help that much other than by making annual donations to the Arizona Rail Passengers group.

 

Regards,

FMC

[Fred M Cain]

Overmod

 

 

Fred M Cain

Here is my question to the forum:  How many people on this forum would like to see a website like that?

 

 

Completely aside from the fact that there's at least eight orders of magnitude difference between 'restoring historic signage for parts of historical Route 66' and 'restoring the Puget Sound Extension' in toto to the standards modern operation would require...

What's the point of an 'advocacy' web site for an unfunded project for which you cannot identify a set of 'champions' with the business or financial ability to build a critical mass?  What it will be is, at best, a glorified railfan site.  I'm sure Michael Sol's collateral on the Pacific Coast Extension is far beyond anything that 'a website devoted to the rebuilding of the PSE' will likely contain, at least initially; how you get enough people to believe in it to build the necessary critical mass and then 'name recognition' otherwise is going to be extremely hard, and all the potential ways the effort might fail (and many are likely ways) ever-present and, like rust, never really sleeping.

 

 

"Overmod",

 

You have made some good points there and given me something to think about.  Like I said before, though, this is not going to happen right away.  And if I did do it, I don't see how it could hurt anything, really.  The PSE might never be rebuilt but that'd be the case anyhow.  The only thing that would hurt is that I would spend money on the site with no results.  Oh well.  I'd probably just spend it on something else anyway.

 

Hmmmn.  Now lemme see.  I have always wanted  a Lionel GG1 and a Lionel Fairbanks Morse!  :)

[Electroliner 1935]

Fred, To believe that investers would put up money to fund such a project, you would have to believe that a business case can be made. Do you have any thoughts toward putting one together?

My negativity is that I (without any knowedge of potential traffic) do not see the traffic demand that would be necessary to make that case. BNSF and UP currently handle the traffic. BNSF has three routes as I understand it (Cascade ex GN, Stampede ex NP and the former SP&S) to Spokane.  Not sure how much can go each route. Currently they have a choke point in the Spokane-Sandpoint area. What they can do to improve that is beyond me. UP Only has their route South  through Portland. Are shipping lines claiming blockage of their desired traffic? I would suspect that Prince Rupert would have siphened off some of the potential containers (much to CN's coffers). 

I feel that you might be Don Quixote dreaming of what might have been. Though perhaps this is your "FIELD OF DREAMS" and if you build it......

[Convicted One]

Fred M Cain

Here is my question to the forum:  How many people on this forum would like to see a website like that?  It at least gives us something to think about.  I am beginning to hatch a number of ideas.  This is not something that is going to happen this year or maybe not even next year.  But legislation is moving through Congress at a glacial pace that if it ever passes would establish Route 66 as a National Historic Trail.  If that were to pass, then I would consider that my efforts have met with at least some success.  I would then take the site down and replace it with a website devoted to the rebuilding of the PSE.

Fred,  forget what the naysayers are telling you. If building such a site would give you enjoyment...then by all means do it......a central repository for info specific to that cause could one day prove useful. Maybe to restore the railroad, or perhaps for a cause that hasn't even been born yet.

But the Milwaukee Pacific Extension, like many vanished eastern railroads, was built into territory that was already adequately served, with ambitions of cutting a slice out of somebody elses business, for self serving interests.  Their mission was not that of a "white knight", and it's failure does not make competitors who survived to celebrate that failure inherently evil.

[Backshop]

Here's why it would never happen.  The only corportation that could build it is an already existing railroad.  They already have their own lines.  What is much cheaper and more effective?  Relaying a whole railroad and probably having to buy land and do improvements or adding more tracks to the right of way you already own?

[DAVID WALTON]

As a teenager in Southern Indiana, I lived a mile from where the CMStP&P crossed the ICRR.  Both had a lot of GP-9's but Milw had F units and even an old Fairbanks Morse unit...only one I was ever able to see in person.  Loved it!

[Gramp]

Fred, I'd like to make a suggestion.  What I've lamented these last 50 years is so many of these rail abandonments have resulted in severed "terrestorial trade routes".  They are no longer wanted for rail use now, but what about for travel in the future?  What I've noticed today is often the rail-to-trail bike routes in place now are used for commutation in addition to recreation.

I've enjoyed biking on rail trails particularly because I find it fun to imagine having been the railroad engineer traversing the route.  Why not attempt to influence the recreation of the entire Pacific Extension route from the Twin Cities to Puget Sound as a transportation trail?  With the advent of electrically assisted bikes, the light grades of ROW's, and not having to be so concerned about conflicting highway traffic, a trail can become very attractive to bike riders as viable transportation.

Here are a couple of links to look at if you are not aware of them already:

     https://www.ridethehiawatha.com/the-trail

     https://www.railstotrails.org/build-trails/trail-building-services/trail-planning-and-gis/milwaukee-road/

 

And then here's an interesting story...

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2007/aug/12/memory-lane/

 

 

 

 

[jeffhergert]

This site may have already been mentioned.  I didn't bother to look through all the pages of this thread.  Even if it has, it's probably worth providing the link again.  I believe Micheal Sol was involved with it.  Lots of information, not only for the PCE but the entire railroad.

 www.milwaukeeroadarchives.com/IndexPage.htm 

Jeff

I don't know if the link is hot. Usually I don't have a problem inserting a link, but this one doesn't seem to want to work.

 

[kgbw49]

A coast-to-coast rail trail is already in the works, actually.

https://www.railstotrails.org/greatamericanrailtrail/

 A good chunk of it in Idaho and Washington looks to be the former Milwaukee Road.

[Fred M Cain]

Convicted One

Fred,  forget what the naysayers are telling you. If building such a site would give you enjoyment...then by all means do it......a central repository for info specific to that cause could one day prove useful. Maybe to restore the railroad, or perhaps for a cause that hasn't even been born yet.

But the Milwaukee Pacific Extension, like many vanished eastern railroads, was built into territory that was already adequately served, with ambitions of cutting a slice out of somebody elses business, for self serving interests.  Their mission was not that of a "white knight", and it's failure does not make competitors who survived to celebrate that failure inherently evil.

 

Dear "Convicted One",

 

You are correct that I would enjoy working on a project like this.  The hardest part of all, however, is simply finding the time to do it.

 

I would try and focus and finding people in the groove such as politicians and business leaders who might take an interest in it.  Railfan support wouldn’t help much.

 

Some ideas I have would be before and after pictures and include an artist’s photoshopped rendition as to how the line would look once it was put back.

 

Clearly, a private, for-profit company would not be able to foot the entire bill.   So much is obvious to me, too.

 

As to whether the line should’ve been built at all in the first place, there are really two sides to that story and each side has believers that are passionate about it.

 

The Milwaukee was hemmed in before 1909 with no outlook to the west and faced a future with poor growth prospects so it wasn’t just pure greed on the part of the PSE promotors.  Then again, in a sense, greed drives all investments, really, even for folks like me trying to save for retirement.

 

The line was probably important and helpful to the Nation during the Second World War years.  So surely it helped carry its weight at that time.

 

It has been shown that by the early 1970s the line was experiencing significant traffic growth.  Sadly, in the bitter end, that growth was derailed by deferred maintenance.

 

One possible mistake I can see was in the electrification.  Although that’s really “green” and environmentally “friendly”, the sad fact of the matter is that they had nowhere even near sufficient traffic to justify electrification even back in the steam days.

 

If the line were ever rebuilt I doubt that they would electrify it.  Unless, of course, A.O.C. becomes president of the United States and decides to pay for that!  (That’s a joke, of course, folks).

 

In conclusion here, I’d like to go back to the end of the recent TRAINS Magazine article where a guy was quoted saying “maybe it wasn’t needed then but it’s needed now”.  The naysayers can argue with that till the cows come home but their argument would be with him – whoever he was, I don’t remember now.

 

Regards,

Fred M. Cain