I know some posters live in the Chicago area, and a lot of us live in the area once served by CNW ( the midwest/upper plains). I was hoping some would share their thoughts on the CNW.
Starting with: How did the CNW work their way into the Powder River Basin? I would have thought that BN would have fought to the end to keep out competition there. I lived in Gillette in the early 1980’s. Every train then had Cascade Green locomotives. At some point, CNW (with help of UP I presume) got in there, and I missed that part. Can anybody explain?
The C&NW recognized the potental in the PRB in the early 1970s but could not find a way to finance the project. During this time I was a Market Manager at the C&NW.
The BN initically announced they were going to object to the C&NW coming into the PRB. Robert Spafford, Chairman of the ICC, invited Larry Provo, CEO of the C&NW and Bob Dowding, CEO of the BN to a meeting in Washington. He pointed out to his guests that the US faced an energy crisis and the national interest required the C&NW coming into the PRB as soon as they could arrange financing and specifically without a long drawn out ICC case about the C&NW getting access. The two CEOs agreed with Mr Spafford’s view.
However, the C&NW was unable to finance the project via the Cowboy Line or a connection with the UP in NE. Therefore, the UP thought the C&NW should step aside and not object to the UP coming in from Nebraska via the North Platte River. The C&NW’s counter proposal was that they set up a joint venture(Northwest Town Properties). The C&NW contributed their geographic position and the UP contributed their borrowing power to the new joint venture.
Do you mean C&NW in Gillette proper, because C&NW never got there. At first C&NW’s rights ended at Coal Creek Jct and then extended north to Caballo Jct still about 20 miles south of Gillette. Also the farther north on the joint line the fewer C&NW trains there would be since C&NW only entered and exited from the south end. I don’t know if that is what you were looking for but there it is.
I didn’t know that the CNW(now UP) didn’t go all the way up to Gillette. I moved away in 1984, and have only been back once. So apparantly the CNW only served the mines in the southern end of Campbell County?
It saved the CNW from the fate of the Rock Island and Milwaukee as the Granger railroads shrank to a size that made some sense in the last quarter of the 20th Century.
C&NW origanally only served the mines up to Coal Creek which branches off of the joint line at milepost 26.2 (from Donkey Creek, the north end of the line). C&NW ran its first train on August 15, 1984. Soon after that C&NW went to the ICC trying to get its trackage rights extended farther north so it could serve the northern 4 or so mines on the line. Cordero Mine had already built a 1.5 mile lead down to Coal Creek Jct so C&NW could have access the mine. The ICC gave C&NW permission to build a 10.8 mile line in 1985 to serve the remaining mines serve
cnw8835: Do you know if that was always a CNW operation? Or did UP also operate trains and crews to the mines-before the merger?
bobwilcox: What can you tell me about the section of track that CNW and BN built together? Was this in addition to tracks that I believe BN already had in place?
No, UP didn’t operate trains into the basin before the merger. UP would deliver the trains to C&NW at South Morril, NE where the UP crew would step off, a C&NW crew would climb on and the train would normally leave very quickly (They still do, just not quite as fast). The South Morril based C&NW crew would take the train up the new line to the Cowboy line and onto the Joint Line up to Bill. At Bill a new crew would climb on and take the train to a mine and back to Bill where another South Morril based crew would return the train to the UP. The expected elapsed time from UP-back to-UP was 20-22 hours.
Also, C&NW’s subsidiary in the Basin was actually called Western Rail Properties Inc.
P.S.-- I should give credit to Fred Frailey for much of this info and for getting me very interested in the PRB. TRAINS, November 1989, pages 40-63.
Fred! Write another article on the PRB! Please!
Just imagine what kinda bad financial position CNW was in NOT to get financial backing for the biggest opportunity in the 20th century for railroads.
Bob, it must have been bleak.
Today, DME seemingly can get backing, with rates considerably lower (adjusted for inflation) than back in the 70’s.
CNW was sitting on a black gold mine and couldnt pull the trigger. How frustrating.
As I understand it, CNW “built” down to the UP, perhaps thru trackage rights and then handed the coal over to UP and then received it back at Fremont, or Omaha.
I wi***hat the CNW Railway was still around today. I realy also wanted to see the CNW run Coal Trains on the Cowboy Line. But when the CNW “GAVE” them selves to the UPRR…that ended it right there. It was realy sad that the cowboy no longer runs Trains anymore. There was some hope for the cowboy line but not anymore. As for the Coal Trains. Well time will tell…Allan.
Yes, it would have cost a whole lot to rebuild the Cowboy Line. Its was 519 miles from Fremont to Shawnee Jct with 90-100 lbs rail with very little ballast. There were 417 bridges, almost all of which would have to have been rebuilt. At best it would have cost 1 million a mile to get the line to the point where a coal train could even safely travel over it. In the mid 70’s when rebuilding the Cowboy was first proposed, C&NW was in no shape to spend at least a half billion dollars just on the Cowboy and then another half billion on their portion of the Joint Line. C&NW couldn’t have managed that even in the best of times.
Once CNW’s Pacific ambitions ended, the Cowboy line no longer mattered in the larger scheme of things. For all intents and purposes, it became a Granger branch. In the 1970’s there was a lot of overbuilt capacity, and it made sense to use UP’s available capacity rather than spend a lot of money on a superfluous single commodity line. Today it might be different, as capacity is maxed and any new business is going to require added tracks.
Thus, we have the DM&E taking on what CNW couldn’t pull off. If CNW had somehow managed to keep it all on the home rails sans UP’s involvement, would that have forestalled the U
I think that CN&W was one of the best RR’s around and I was pretty [:(] to see it fall to the UP but aleast I still see some of the CN&W cars and even loco around from time to time.
Once CNW’s Pacific ambitions ended, the Cowboy line no longer mattered in the larger scheme of things. For all intents and purposes, it became a Granger branch. In the 1970’s there was a lot of overbuilt capacity, and it made sense to use UP’s available capacity rather than spend a lot of money on a superfluous single commodity line. Today it might be different, as capacity is maxed and any new business is going to require added tracks.
Thus, we have the DM&E taking on what CNW couldn’t pull off. If CNW had somehow managed to keep it all on the h