CSSHEGEWISCH Observation about the late MILW Chicago-Omaha main. It was once noted in the pages of TRAINS that the various passenger stops on that line for the "Cities" Streamliners depended on bus connections to reach the city that was nearby. This would suggest that the line may have been suitable for overhead traffic but very little local business.
Observation about the late MILW Chicago-Omaha main. It was once noted in the pages of TRAINS that the various passenger stops on that line for the "Cities" Streamliners depended on bus connections to reach the city that was nearby. This would suggest that the line may have been suitable for overhead traffic but very little local business.
Marion, IA is a good example of the late to build to Omaha Milwaukee missing major cities. The C&NW built earlier and mainline served nearby, but much larger Cedar Rapids.
Clearly the Rock Island (Des Moines, Davenport, Iowa City) had the most large cities en route in Iowa. The rest (C&NW, CGW, IC and CBb&Q) had few to almost none, yet the surviving major routes are the C&NW (Cedar Rapids, Ames) and CB&Q (Ottumwa, Creston). Intermediate traffic was not the key, the Union Pacific or ownership of a route to Denver and beyond was. The IC did OK as long as the packing house business en route thrived.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Victrola1 CSSHEGEWISCH Observation about the late MILW Chicago-Omaha main. It was once noted in the pages of TRAINS that the various passenger stops on that line for the "Cities" Streamliners depended on bus connections to reach the city that was nearby. This would suggest that the line may have been suitable for overhead traffic but very little local business. Marion, IA is a good example of the late to build to Omaha Milwaukee missing major cities. The C&NW built earlier and mainline served nearby, but much larger Cedar Rapids.
The MILW definitely did serve Cedar Rapids. They had a yard in downtown Cedar Rapids (next to the IC's facility) not to mention a Regional Accounting office in downtown Cedar Rapids as well.
Los Angeles Rams Guy Victrola1 CSSHEGEWISCH Observation about the late MILW Chicago-Omaha main. It was once noted in the pages of TRAINS that the various passenger stops on that line for the "Cities" Streamliners depended on bus connections to reach the city that was nearby. This would suggest that the line may have been suitable for overhead traffic but very little local business. Marion, IA is a good example of the late to build to Omaha Milwaukee missing major cities. The C&NW built earlier and mainline served nearby, but much larger Cedar Rapids. The MILW definitely did serve Cedar Rapids. They had a yard in downtown Cedar Rapids (next to the IC's facility) not to mention a Regional Accounting office in downtown Cedar Rapids as well.
But not on the MILW main line.
schlimm Los Angeles Rams Guy Victrola1 CSSHEGEWISCH Observation about the late MILW Chicago-Omaha main. It was once noted in the pages of TRAINS that the various passenger stops on that line for the "Cities" Streamliners depended on bus connections to reach the city that was nearby. This would suggest that the line may have been suitable for overhead traffic but very little local business. Marion, IA is a good example of the late to build to Omaha Milwaukee missing major cities. The C&NW built earlier and mainline served nearby, but much larger Cedar Rapids. The MILW definitely did serve Cedar Rapids. They had a yard in downtown Cedar Rapids (next to the IC's facility) not to mention a Regional Accounting office in downtown Cedar Rapids as well. But not on the MILW main line.
Marion and Cedar Rapids have always been one big metropolitan area.
Los Angeles Rams GuyMarion and Cedar Rapids have always been one big metropolitan area.
I defer to your expert knowledge.
If ALL the Milwaukee Road trackage, as it was in 1955, miraculously appeared intact tomorrow morning and someone told you to make a railroad out of it I think it would be extremely viable and very competitive in today's market as it once existed.
Los Angeles Rams Guy Marion and Cedar Rapids have always been one big metropolitan area.
Mark Meyer
Miningman If ALL the Milwaukee Road trackage, as it was in 1955, miraculously appeared intact tomorrow morning and someone told you to make a railroad out of it I think it would be extremely viable and very competitive in today's market as it once existed.
It wouldn't. Strong routes survive.
http://www.trainweb.org/milwaukeemyths/
VerMontanan Miningman If ALL the Milwaukee Road trackage, as it was in 1955, miraculously appeared intact tomorrow morning and someone told you to make a railroad out of it I think it would be extremely viable and very competitive in today's market as it once existed. It wouldn't. Strong routes survive. http://www.trainweb.org/milwaukeemyths/
Good research but it does not concern the failure of the MILW in Iowa. That failure is primarily a consequence of little online business because it missed most Iowa cities of consequence and it failed to achieve a guaranteed source of interchange from the UP.
Your Cadillac grows tail fins over night and the Milwaukee is now as it was in 1955. The route from Green Island, Iowa to Council Bluffs would most likely be the first mainline to be abandon.
The dust has settled. Union Pacific took the C&NW and needs nobody else to reach Chicago. The Burlington and its current incantation never had any reason to share what it found west of Omaha going to Chicago. Those remain the two main routes through Iowa going east.
Canadian National (Illinois Central) and Iowa Interstate (Rock Island) mostly live off what they gather in their territory. What the Milwaukee offered off the land the Burlington Northern picked up. BN took the Milwaukee from Council Bluffs to just east of Coon Rapids, but its gone from there to the Mississippi River.
Six from Omaha to Chicago across Iowa in 1955 have become four. There is no foreseeable room for more.
VerMontanan & Victrola1- Seems as though I fell into VerMontanan's trap as he answered real quick with that Mark Meyer article. Now that is a heck of a read and very well done. There are many counterpoints that can be made, about the Pacific Extension, and I recall a heated debate on this forum on the fate of the Milwaukee and what happened. Victrola1 gives good reasons on what happened in Iowa. The weakness to both arguments in this context is that neither position considers the other existing trackage. It would be an interesting economic study to see what could be accomplished, what connections could be made. At this point I can only use common sense and the knowledge of what was there and my instincts tell me it's a winner. It would make an interesting economic thesis.
Miningman VerMontanan & Victrola1- Seems as though I fell into VerMontanan's trap as he answered real quick with that Mark Meyer article. Now that is a heck of a read and very well done. There are many counterpoints that can be made, about the Pacific Extension, and I recall a heated debate on this forum on the fate of the Milwaukee and what happened. Victrola1 gives good reasons on what happened in Iowa. The weakness to both arguments in this context is that neither position considers the other existing trackage. It would be an interesting economic study to see what could be accomplished, what connections could be made. At this point I can only use common sense and the knowledge of what was there and my instincts tell me it's a winner. It would make an interesting economic thesis.
Post 1955, what if the long-planned CNW/CMStP merger had occured?
Schlimm adds more to the point. The Milwaukee was counting on this to happen and was "heartbroken" for lack of a better term when the merger did not happen.
Assume the Milwaukee Road and C&NW merger occurred in the late 1950's. Two mainlines running from Chicago to Omaha. Two mainlines not that far apart running across Iowa now owned by one enitity.
The line in the stronger position would be the C&NW. The Milwaukee's route across Iowa to Omaha probably would have been largely abandon before 1980.
I think there are a couple more reasons why Milwaukee Road favored retention of the Kansas City line over Council Bluffs....
1. Interchange with Southern Pacific (were they not a traffic partner in the NW?)
2. Interchange with Kansas City Southern (were they not also a traffic partner?)
3. Only Santa Fe had a better Chicago to Kansas City rail route, in my opinion.
As late as 1963, maybe later, the CNW line was in bad shape while the MILW line, greatly improved for the Cities transfer, was still very good (a foolish move according to one poster). So quite possibly the CNW would have been reduced to single track for locals.
In fact, Marion was the county seat of Linn County until 1919 when it was moved to the a-bit-larger (by that time) Cedar Rapids. Of course, in more modern times, Cedar Rapids grew to the point that Marion became known as a suburb even though people in Marion still don't think they are (my aunt lives in Cedar Rapids).
The roof of Marion's long gone Milwaukee Road depot lives. It is the roof of the Shelter house in Marion's town Square half a block from where the depot stood.
On the west side of Marion's town square there is a Civil War cannon. It is pointed toward Cedar Rapids.
CMStPnP I think there are a couple more reasons why Milwaukee Road favored retention of the Kansas City line over Council Bluffs.... 1. Interchange with Southern Pacific (were they not a traffic partner in the NW?) 2. Interchange with Kansas City Southern (were they not also a traffic partner?) 3. Only Santa Fe had a better Chicago to Kansas City rail route, in my opinion.
I think the coming shutdown of the RI may have been a big part in the decision. The MILW picked up most of the RI's business in the Quad Cities/Muscatine, and for a while Iowa City line(interchange with the Crandic and a mini steel mill). Enough business that half the income of the slimmed down railroad was from that section of the railroad. (A friend of mine was an agent, orginally for the RI, then DRI Line, and finally the MILW. All in the same office, the agency that covered the mini-mill. A MILW auditor had told him they couldn't understand how the RI went broke with all the business they had in that area.)
I also can't help but wonder if the MILW had heard through the grapevine that if they expected any federal government help, they would get out of the Chicago-Omaha corridor. The government had started pouring money into the CNW and had made it known that anyone who picked up the old RI in that corridor for use as a through route would get no help in it's rehabilitation from them.
Jeff
jeffhergertI think the coming shutdown of the RI may have been a big part in the decision. The MILW picked up most of the RI's business in the Quad Cities/Muscatine, and for a while Iowa City line(interchange with the Crandic and a mini steel mill). Enough business that half the income of the slimmed down railroad was from that section of the railroad. (A friend of mine was an agent, orginally for the RI, then DRI Line, and finally the MILW. All in the same office, the agency that covered the mini-mill. A MILW auditor had told him they couldn't understand how the RI went broke with all the business they had in that area.) I also can't help but wonder if the MILW had heard through the grapevine that if they expected any federal government help, they would get out of the Chicago-Omaha corridor. The government had started pouring money into the CNW and had made it known that anyone who picked up the old RI in that corridor for use as a through route would get no help in it's rehabilitation from them. Jeff
Could have been that too. I have no idea of online business on the Kansas City line.
I remember the Rock Island Bankruptcy, I got the impression the Feds in particular the bankruptcy Trustee was a little PO'd as well that the RI railway union went on strike during reorganization attempt.........then he voted for liquidation.
Schlimm makes a good point about how and if the proposed merger with CNW might have changed things back in the day. For me, in the final analysis, I vividly recall as a very young boy when the MILW's mainline across Iowa was in great shape and had not only healthy freight business but the "Cities" trains as well and it seems incredulous to me that that's all gone now.
It absolutely is incredulous that Milwaukees mainline across Iowa is no more. I remember reading in Trains magazine that there was far far to much track in Iowa and that it needs rationalization. What if instead the multiple mains across Iowa reaching for points West showed the way to as many transcontinental railroads in end to end mergers, all in competition. Instead of 4 big systems there were 10 or so pretty healthy railroads in a vigorous but cooperative competition. In my view that's a better option all around, but, it was not to be.
Then again, try explaining to someone from that era today's Trains "Photo of the Day" ...let's say C&O locomotive's, hauling a Canadian National train, on Santa Fe tracks. They would haul you off to the looney bin.
schlimm VerMontanan Miningman If ALL the Milwaukee Road trackage, as it was in 1955, miraculously appeared intact tomorrow morning and someone told you to make a railroad out of it I think it would be extremely viable and very competitive in today's market as it once existed. It wouldn't. Strong routes survive. http://www.trainweb.org/milwaukeemyths/ Good research but it does not concern the failure of the MILW in Iowa. That failure is primarily a consequence of little online business because it missed most Iowa cities of consequence and it failed to achieve a guaranteed source of interchange from the UP.
I wonder if that didn't have a lot to do with how the Milwaukee was planned in the farm states. Milwaukee Road was set up to be a Grainer railroad. It had a lot of lines through heavy farming areas. It’s logical when you look at the economy when those lines were built. America produced grain and livestock. America and the world ate that grain and livestock. Surely, there would be a never-ending supply of traffic…unless the world changed. I think the PCE was Milwaukee’s attempt to evolve in a changing world economy. It didn’t work, and the Grainer railroad shriveled up on the vine.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Murphy Siding Milwaukee Road was set up to be a Grainer railroad. It had a lot of lines through heavy farming areas. It’s logical when you look at the economy when those lines were built. America produced grain and livestock. America and the world ate that grain and livestock. Surely, there would be a never-ending supply of traffic…
Whoa!! Iowa (and IL, NB, etc.) produces more ag products than ever and exports a lot of them. What has changed is the logistics. And it's Granger, not Grainer.
Chicago, Milwaukee & Northwestern would’ve went to the actual Northwest.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1338&dat=19640924&id=Po9YAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mPcDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6661,6234637&hl=en
https://archive.org/stream/annualreportofin8184unit#page/n5/mode/2up
Wanswheel- Holy smokes! That's a week worth of reading ...you are a genius. Being a Canadian I can only watch with fascination,and some amusement, your presidential election race, however, if you are truly undecided may I suggest you pencil in Wanswheel.
CM&N..that's got a ring to it. Too bad it didn't happen. In the end I suppose Union Pacific and Canadian Pacific made out well.
schlimm Murphy Siding Milwaukee Road was set up to be a Grainer railroad. It had a lot of lines through heavy farming areas. It’s logical when you look at the economy when those lines were built. America produced grain and livestock. America and the world ate that grain and livestock. Surely, there would be a never-ending supply of traffic… Whoa!! Iowa (and IL, NB, etc.) produces more ag products than ever and exports a lot of them. What has changed is the logistics. And it's Granger, not Grainer.
The decision to abandon the Milwaukee Road from Green Island to Manilla preceded the Rock Island shut down by three years. But the Rock Island's line from Muscatine throught Fairfield and Eldon to Allerton where it joined the Spine Line, was in terrible shape. Remember also that the Milwaukee and the Northwestern tried to acquire the Rock Island while the ICC kept delaying the decision on the RI-UP merger. The Northwestern bought the Great Western in 1968 and within a few years abandoned the line from Chicago to Dubuque as it was a circuitous routing to Omaha.
CMStPnP jeffhergert I think the coming shutdown of the RI may have been a big part in the decision. The MILW picked up most of the RI's business in the Quad Cities/Muscatine, and for a while Iowa City line(interchange with the Crandic and a mini steel mill). Enough business that half the income of the slimmed down railroad was from that section of the railroad. (A friend of mine was an agent, orginally for the RI, then DRI Line, and finally the MILW. All in the same office, the agency that covered the mini-mill. A MILW auditor had told him they couldn't understand how the RI went broke with all the business they had in that area.) I also can't help but wonder if the MILW had heard through the grapevine that if they expected any federal government help, they would get out of the Chicago-Omaha corridor. The government had started pouring money into the CNW and had made it known that anyone who picked up the old RI in that corridor for use as a through route would get no help in it's rehabilitation from them. Jeff Could have been that too. I have no idea of online business on the Kansas City line. I remember the Rock Island Bankruptcy, I got the impression the Feds in particular the bankruptcy Trustee was a little PO'd as well that the RI railway union went on strike during reorganization attempt.........then he voted for liquidation.
jeffhergert I think the coming shutdown of the RI may have been a big part in the decision. The MILW picked up most of the RI's business in the Quad Cities/Muscatine, and for a while Iowa City line(interchange with the Crandic and a mini steel mill). Enough business that half the income of the slimmed down railroad was from that section of the railroad. (A friend of mine was an agent, orginally for the RI, then DRI Line, and finally the MILW. All in the same office, the agency that covered the mini-mill. A MILW auditor had told him they couldn't understand how the RI went broke with all the business they had in that area.) I also can't help but wonder if the MILW had heard through the grapevine that if they expected any federal government help, they would get out of the Chicago-Omaha corridor. The government had started pouring money into the CNW and had made it known that anyone who picked up the old RI in that corridor for use as a through route would get no help in it's rehabilitation from them. Jeff
Ye gods! how did I know nothing about that item immediately below the MILW-C&NW combination!
N&W, C&O, CNJ and B&M all in it together, in 1969? THAT would have produced some interesting results, especially if something akin to Dereco brought some D&H and EL into the mix afterward...
Milwaukee Road strategic planning studies, May 1979 by Booz-Allen-Hamilton Consulting.
http://www.milwaukeeroadarchives.com/Bankruptcy/1979.05.02.Milwaukee%20Road%20Strategic%20Planning%20Studies.pdf
http://www.milwaukeeroadarchives.com/Bankruptcy/StrategicPlanningStudiesVol2.pdf
http://www.milwaukeeroadarchives.com/Bankruptcy/Bankruptcy.htm
Council Bluffs was still being looked at. Another study that was somewhere on the Milwaukeeroadarchives site (that I can't find at the moment-it looks like they redid some of the site since I last visited) stated that the UP had agreed to accept the MILW-UP run through via Kansas City instead of Council Bluffs. That may have been a big reason to abandon that gateway.
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