CMStP&P Transcon

[ccltrains]

Since the PCE was the last line built they had access to state of the art building equipment. Was their ROW superior to others that were built essentially with pick and shovel?

[BaltACD]

Any rail line without a traffic base to support it, is bound to fail.  Basic Economics.

[PNWRMNM]

GN Fan,

The MILW did make it to Seattle via trackage rights over the Pacific Coast. Passenger trains used UP Union Station and they had a freight yard between the Sears building and the NP Stacy Street Yard. Stacy Street is now SIG (Seattle Intermodal Gateway), the steamship container yard. BN bought the MILW yard and incorporated it into SIG long ago.

Seattle also had a rail car barge slip, at Pier 27 IIRC. They floated cars to Shelton, Port Gamble, Port Townsend, and Bellingham at least, pre BN merger. My recollection is that this was their only such facility on Puget Sound, but my Tacoma geography is not as good as my Seattle.

FWIW I am in the camp of they never should have built the Pacific Coast Extension. PCE cost about $240 million to build and turned a prosperous granger line into a bankrupt transcontinental by 1925.

Max Lowenthal in 'The Nation Pays" says that the market value of the company declined by $455 Million between 1905 and 1925. Between 1909 and 1916 bonded debt trippled, while no new stock was issued. The extension was built entirely on credit and the line never generated enough traffic to support it. 

After the second bankruptcy, some of the unions, and union men, on the west end claimed that the PCE was profitable and attempted to buy it out of bankruptcy. They could not find any entity to finance them. Virtually all of the main line west of Miles City MT? was scrapped. The state of SD bought the line in SD, probably to Miles City, and had the BN operate it to haul grain. I think the BN finally bought it from the state.

Mac

[Murphy Siding]

      How 'bout theory #3?  It seemed like a good idea at the time, but cost & potential traffic estimates were way off.  Combining  that with unforeseen changes in transportation needs and patterns doomed the PCE from the start.  Milwaukee Road directors dug themselves into a very deep hole from the get-go, then spent the rest of Milwaukee Road's existence trying to dig itself out- and failed.

[GN_Fan]

In actuality, the Pacific Extension failed because the traffic base was not there.  The line never passed thru any cities that were not already well served by rail, and the others were really small towns that never had any industry at all.  Once the extension got into S. Dakota, it went thru robust business places like Aberdean, Mobridge, and Marmarth.  The first city in Montana was Miles City, dominated by the NP.  Then it was Roundup, Harlowton, Ringling, Three Forks, and finally Butte, where the GN, NP, UP, and BAP were entrenched.  In Missoula, the MILW bypassed every lumber mill in town, but did manage to pick up the pulp mill in Frenchtown.  Zip in all of Idaho.  I do not recollect much MILW presence in either Spokane or Seattle, and my thinking is that the MILW terminated in Tacoma rather than Seattle, but I may be wrong on that. 

I was in Missoula during the late 60's and they ran only 2 thru freights in either direction.  I also remember one old guy saying that you never want to ride a MILW freight -- too many wrecks.  I also remember that in the 70's one railroad had to hire a VP of Wrecks.  I suspect that it was the MILW. 

[NorthWest]

 

The Milwaukee's management decided to discontinue electrification in the early 70's. The idea was that selling the wire would pay for the diesels to replace the electrics. Unfortunately, the 1973 oil crisis had raised the price of diesel, and the recession's drop in copper prices meant the diesels weren't paid for. (IIRC, the amount of money spent on buying diesels could have closed the electrification gap, but I could be wrong).

 

[greyhounds]

KBCpresident

I have a few questions:

First of all, I have heard two conflicting theories about their pacific extention:
    The first, says that if the Pacific extention was in fact a profitable investment, that the Milwaukee Road's management was pathetic at the time, and that had the CMStP&P been managed correctly, they could have continued as a profitable transcon, and that abandonment occured mainly because the management at the time was  'not interested in runnigna railroad'

    The Second says that building to Puget SOund was a mistake in the first place, and that they never should have done  such a bold move and that it was only a matter of time.\

Are either of these theories more correct than the other? Assuming a merger hadn't occured, could the CMStP&P still exist as a  transcontinental railroad today?

Boy, did we have some fights over this one back in "Old Days".  There was what I came to call "The Milwaukee Road Cult" that maintained the railroad was done in by conspiracy and stupidity.  

I never bought into that.  To be financially successful a railroad main line needs volume.  The Pacific Coast Extension of the MILW never had that volume.  The line ran through sparsely populated country for hundreds of miles.  This country produced and consumed little and generated not much in terms of business for the railroad.

At the few locations that did produce any traffic the Milwaukee was the fourth railroad.  An example being Butte, MT with its copper mines.   The MILW had to go up against the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and Union Pacific for business at Butte.

At the western end point, Seattle/Tacoma, the MILW was again the fourth railroad in.  Seattle/Tacoma were not major ports until the container ship era.  The business to support a long rail line, such as the Pacific Coast Extension of the Milwaukee Road just wasn't there.  

The powers that were obviously thought the traffic would develop when they built the PCE.  But they were proven wrong.  "You pay your money and you take your chances."    

[jrbernier]

  You are going to hear conflicting stories.  Here are some things to consider:

• The 'Pacific Extension' cost far more that the original estimates.
• They had to 'electrify' two the worst mountain segments as steam could not handle the low temps(with the reduced tonnage ratings).
• The Panama Canal was opened about the time the Milwaukee Road completed the Pacific Extension.

  The heavy debt load by all of this expansion was a financial burden for years on the company.  And the 5 mountain crossings(compared to the 2 on the Great Northern) meant extra operating costs.  The best Seattle line  is the ex-GN via Cascade Tunnel, and the best line to Portland is a draw between the UP and ex-NP/Ex-SP&S line.  Even he ex-NP line in Montana has two rather stiff crossing compared to the easy ex-GN crossing via Marias Pass.

Jim

[KBCpresident]

I have a few questions:

First of all, I have heard two conflicting theories about their pacific extention:
    The first, says that if the Pacific extention was in fact a profitable investment, that the Milwaukee Road's management was pathetic at the time, and that had the CMStP&P been managed correctly, they could have continued as a profitable transcon, and that abandonment occured mainly because the management at the time was  'not interested in runnigna railroad'

    The Second says that building to Puget SOund was a mistake in the first place, and that they never should have done  such a bold move and that it was only a matter of time.\

Are either of these theories more correct than the other? Assuming a merger hadn't occured, could the CMStP&P still exist as a  transcontinental railroad today?