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?
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.
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 b
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).
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.
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.
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.
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?
State of the art building equipment isn’t going a build a route with better grades if all of the routes with better grades are already occupied, even if those routes were built with pick and shovel.
Compare the profiles of MILW, UP, NP, and GN. GN had by far the best profile and thus the lowest operating cost. NP was there first and all rail dependent business located in MT, ID, and WA from 1883 to 1909 located on the NP. Jim Hill deliberately stayed away from the NP so he could develop a separate territory. GN came second in 1893, so they had a 16 year jump on MILW.
The MILW was located right along side the NP for hundreds of miles across Montana and generally parallel all the way from Minnesota.
The decision to build the MILW was made in 1905. The Elkins Act regulating rates was passed in 1903. The decision to build the Panama Canal came in 1906 IIRC. I would argue that had the MILW management been paying attention, they should have would have cancelled the project in 1906, when another Act to regulate rates was passed.
The MILW main was completed in 1909. The last of the “Progressive Era” rate regulatory acts was passed in 1910, which had the practical effect of freezing nominal rates in a period of inflation, something then new to the American Economy. The entire industry was capital starved by 1917. The PCE never developed enough traffic to come close to supporting the debt incurred to build it. The MILW went bankrupt in 1925, a bankruptcy that lasted for an unusually long 20 years.
There is a lot to be said for being there “the firstest (NP) with the mostest (GN)”.
Selling the copper wire in no way would ‘pay’ for new diesels(even at 1974 prices). In fact, the Milwaukee Road had to leave the overhead up and ;energized’ to power the block signal system as there were no power line to recharge the signal system batteries…
Well… Aberdeen was robust, I guess, but that was because it was served by several railroads already. Mobridge didn’t exist, until the Milwaukee built a bridge across the Missouri River there. It has never been what I would call robust. Marmarth is in the other Dakota- the north one. It was nothing until the Milwaukee came through, and I think it may have disappeared off the map by now. Other than a small farm town now and then, the PCE across the top of South Dakota went through miles and miles of nothing.
I can tell you, that the line from the S.D. /MInnesota border west to Mobridge is built quite well. The countryside rolls up and down, but the ROW rides on a pretty flat, cut & fill profile for miles
But now the route would be a great one for CHI - west coast IMs. No intermediate traffic to worry about and if electrification had been filled in ? with the multi voltage capable loco motors available today a slow conversion to a 25 Kv system could be in progress today ?
The same has been said about the mostly abandoned Erie main line between Chicago and New Jersey, especially relating to clearances that would have allowed double stacks from the outset.
C. M. & St. P to Seattle extension. C. R. I. & P. Sioux Falls to Seattle extension. C. B. & Q. Alliance to Seattle extension. Etc. Given the traffic base and routes left to take, would it have made much difference in the end?
Add to that the CRIP/SP Arizona & California RR Liberal - Hugoton-Ramsey/Castaneda-Trinidad-Durango-into Northern Arizona…Those two quit while they were ahead at about the same time.
We’d have a real nice rails to trails path through about 5 mountain ranges? Seems to me, that even if the line could somehow be put back in, the route would still be at a disadvantage, and the traffic still wouldn’t be there to support it.