Jones Junction, Montana AKA Huntley.

[NP Eddie]

ALL:

Huntley Montana was renamed Jones Junction after the MRL was created.

Who was Jones?

 

Ed Burns

[BaltACD]

 

I have no idea.

On CSX, valued employees have had Control Points and other named aspects necessary for successful operations named after them.

I have a Yard Limit named after myself.

[Erik_Mag]

FWIW, Huntley was east of Billings and my recollection was that the eastern end of MRL is Laurel, which is west of Billings. Also, FWIW, the most famous member of the Huntley family was Chet Huntley of NBC News.

[Vermontanan2]

NP Eddie

ALL:

Huntley Montana was renamed Jones Junction after the MRL was created.

Who was Jones?

Huntley and Jones Jct. are NOT one in the same.  Huntley is the junction of the ex-NP and ex-CB&Q main lines east of Billings.  Jones Jct. was created in the Fall of 1975 as was Moran Jct.  Jones Jct. is 3.4 miles east of Huntley on the ex-NP main line; Moran Jct. is 3.4 miles east of Huntley on the ex-CB&Q main line.  To accommodate burgeoning coal traffic, a connecting track was constructed (basically creating a giant wye) from Moran Jct. to Jones Jct. which allowed loaded coal trains from Sheridan, WY going west on the ex-CB&Q to move directly onto the ex-NP line toward Forsyth, MT and continue east.  Crews began operating between Sheridan and Forsyth (since relatively recently discontinued in favor of a crew change at Jones Jct.).

I don’t know who Jones was – likely some local railroad official at the time of construction, but it’s definitely one of the most-common surnames.  Same with Moran – another common surname in the Billings area, including that of numerous area railroaders over the years.

Erik_Mag

FWIW, Huntley was east of Billings and my recollection was that the eastern end of MRL is Laurel, which is west of Billings. Also, FWIW, the most famous member of the Huntley family was Chet Huntley of NBC News.

No, the east end of MRL is Jones Jct.  MRL services all the industries at Laurel and Billings as well as East Billings.  The furthest-east MRL customer is the Miller-Coors (originally just Coors) barley plant between Huntley and Jones Jct.  In October of last year, Gavilon Grain completed a shuttle grain facility east of Huntley, just south of the Miller-Coors facility, but rail access is off the ex-CB&Q (BNSF) main track.  The facility replaced a relatively awkward operation on the south side of downtown Billings which had no loop track.  The new Gavilon facility is only about 15 miles west of United Grain’s shuttle facility located west of Pompeys Pillar.  These are the only two shuttle grain facilities in all of Southeastern Montana.

 

Chet Huntley was indeed a native Montanan, born in Cardwell – just east of Whitehall.  According to Wikipedia, his dad was a telegrapher for the NP and the family lived throughout the area, but they also lived for awhile in Saco on the ex-GN main line.  (In fact, there’s even a photo of his school in Saco as viewed from the Empire Builder at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saco,_Montana#/media/File:Chet_Huntley_School_Saco_Montana.jpg )

Most of America who are old enough remember Chet Huntley to be one of the two anchors of NBC’s Nightly Huntley-Brinkley Report, but in Montana, Chet Huntley is best remembered as the founder of the Big Sky Resort – the state’s largest – straddling Gallatin and Madison counties south of Bozeman.

Huntley, Montana is named for a pioneer stockman who ran a ferry across the Yellowstone River.  But in Montana today, the name “Huntley” is best associated with Huntley Project High School in Worden (just east of Huntley) serving surrounding communities.  “Huntley Project” was the name of an area irrigation project which was completed in 1907.