I’ve enjoyed this forum for over a year now. The one subject that seems to be most popular is The Chicago,Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad. Lots of discussion,dialog,questions, answers,…and fighting and name-calling. It’s a shame,because it really is an interesting subject.
How 'bout we try something different? Anyone who has read current and past Milwaukee threads knows the hot topics, and the usual suspects involved. (I’m not pointing fingers-I’d have to call myself one of the usual suspects, who has been in on most of the hot topics.) Perhaps, it’s time to rise above that?
With the wealth of knowledge,and diversified backgrounds of all of us,there is a lot we could learn from each other.If you feel the need to go*out *there, please restrain yourself enough to not spoil it for the rest of us-I’ll try to do the same.
I’ll start.
Who among us worked for MILW at one time?
Anybody ridden on MILWpassenger trains? How did they compare?
Who can tell me anything about Murphy Siding, on The Milwaukee Road, approximately 7 miles east of Rapid City, S.D.? As a kid, in the early 70’s, they trucked bentonite to the siding, and loaded it into hoppers. Anybody?
This will (or should be) an interesting thread to watch…
Certainly, the Fate of the MILW, and its legacy, are topics of spirit and passion, as we have seen here.
I think this is a great idea. The previous thread was arguing about freight rates from 30 years ago, and it got a little boring. I know nothing (firsthand) of the Milwaukee Road, but after reading a ton of books and traveling across the country looking for the remains I got some kind of okay pictures. I will post them here later.
The real problem was certain “usual suspects” could not let any “fact” or “opinion” opposite to their own could not leave “those that were not in complete agreement” to their facts and/or opinions. My experience is that, with incredibly few exceptions, there are so many different parts to any subject, all of them will be correct to one degree or another.
We need to remember that, and then put that into practice. That is one of the real benefits of these forums - we receive all of the benefits of all of these varried opinions and this in turn makes us all better for the reading and posting.
Actually, here’s a good question to go along with this. I’ve always understood that CMC Heartland (aka CMC Heartless) was the surviving “corporate parent” of the Milwaukee Road (railroad). Yet a recent newspaper article mentions that they “took over” the real estate operations of the bankrupt railroad.
Being a newspaper article, I’m inclined to think that they’re full of … , but I’m always up for learning something new.
BTW, the article mentioned that CMC sold the last of its land in the Milwaukee area in December…
Okay here we go.
If these don’t turn out please let me know!
Here’s Loweth substation in July, 2005. This was in the middle of nowhere, Montana. I think it is amazing that the railroad trucked craftsmen all the way out here to build this. At one time they must have really bought into the electification thing.
This is the view west of Loweth. Pretty desolate. Check out that signal mast!
Another signal mast, July, 2005
I caught this bandit in Wauwatosa on the CP Line (former MILW ROAD)
(By the way I apologize if some of these are repeats. I will have a few new ones later.)
This bandit was in Sturtevant in April, 2003.
This covered hopper was on the DME in July, 2005. You can see the weld marks where the placard for “America’s Resourceful Railroad” was.
Okay, here a some new ones.
This is a caboose I found in the back yards of the rr museum at Union, Illinois.
I know this is a crappy picture, but I was really young and had no idea what I was looking at. This is a MILW RD. SDL-39 in Theinsville, WI. I think the year was something like 1987 but I may be wrong. The loco already has Wisconsin Central reporting marks on it. Last I read, these engines were heading to Brazil.
solzrules: Enjoyed the photos, thanks. About 5 years ago, I was at a wedding in Mobridge. I tried to find the wye for the(long gone) branchline to Faith and Isabell just west of the river, with no luck. I assumed it should have been just accross the bridge, before the line starts climbing. In hindsight, I would bet it’s under the river/lake, as the line was gone before the Missouri was dammed up. I think that is the third bridge at Mobridge.
The SDL-39: Local legend was that they were ordered for use on light duty branch lines in the Dakotas, but nearly every other picture I see shows them sonewhere in Wisconsin. Anybody know what the range of those beasts was?
I also heard that CMC/Heartland Partners was trying to finally liquidate itself but there were some enviromental liabilities that were preventing it from doing so.
The shot of the Milw wide vision caboose is interesting in as much as Milw only owned two. They were tacked onto a BN order to serve as part of Milw’s contribution to a joint coal unit train. Odly enough i worked on one of them from Missoula to Spokane, but after the Milw shut down and I was working for the BN. It still had Milw paint but I don’t recall if it had been numbered into the BN series.
I think it was out of Gascoyne, North Dakota. I remember seeing some pictures in a book somehwere. They were using bathtub gondolas that were retro-fitted with a homemade cover to keep the coal dust from blowing out in transit.
Colstrip eastbound and Gascoyne to Big Stone. BN originated the train at Colstrip, and Milwaukee took the train at Miles City, one of the Eleven Western Gateways under the BN merger. Each company supplied half the power for a run-through operation. The Colstrip trains generated about $7 million a year for Milwaukee, and the Gascoyne coal trains about $6.5 million.
Bechtel Corp. designed the car covers for Milwaukee and I believe the covers were part of the order for the coal cars.
Well, they were an “engineering and construction” company. That must have been the engineering part. According to their website, they got started in railroading: “In 1998, our organization observed 100 years of building. It’s a legacy that began with W.A. Bechtel’s work grading railroad beds in 1898 and continues to this very moment on hundreds of job sites around the world.”
In 1978 the MILW had two run thru coal trains with the BN. The first called Columbia I was interchanged with the MILW at St. Paul to serve the Portage, WI. plant. The second, called Columbia II, was interchanged with the MILW at Council Bluffs, IA. and also ran to Portage, WI.
As a former employee in the engineering department in Aberdeen and later in Chicago, I can tell you the following:
Fuzzybroker: Chicago Milwaukee Corporation (CMC) was the surviving parent company that held all of the land that the Soo Line did not get with the purchase of the railroad. There was a lot of valuable land. The asset purchase agreement was not as clear as it should have been and there was some disagreement as to what land should have gone with the railroad and what was to remain.
Solzrules: NIce pictures.
Murphy Siding: The Faith and Isabel lines lasted until near the end. When the Oahe dam was built around the early 1970’s parts of the lines were raised to get them above water level. The bridge you see in the picture above is the new bridge that was built at the same time. We started running coal trains between Gascoyne and Big Stone about 1973. We extended several siding then to accomodate the longer coal trains.
By the way some of us former employees get together every year for a picnic and we will meet again here in the Chicago area in a couple weeks.
Murphy Siding - One question you asked - did anyone ride the Miwaukee? I’ll answer that one. Somtime between 1960 and 1967 when we lived in Huron, S.D. OI took a trip to Dayton. Ohio. Rode the Milwaukee from Aberdeen to Chicago. Morning Hiawatha from Minneapolis to Chicago and the Afternoon Hiawatha Chicago to Minneapolis. It was in September when the trees were in their best color and I rode upstairs in the full length dome car and just really enjoyed the passing scenery. It was one of the smoothest rides I have ever had on a train, and we were on time to the minute in both directions.
Also rode the Milwaukee from Sioux Falls to Chicago and return. Ride wasn’t quite as smooth, but we were on time both ways.
By the way, I worked at Union Station in Omaha for 8 years and can say that the Midwest Hiawatha from Chicago to Omaha was an on-time train.
