I am looking for some information regarding the famed “Cowboy Line.” I do know that a portion of the original line in Wyoming (Shawnee Jct. to a location East of there) that I can not find information about. Can anyone suggest a book or literature that could tell me more? There was an excellent article about the powder river basin in the May issue of Trains 2010 that included bits and pieces about the cowboy but nothing very extensive. Thanks for the help everybody!
There is a book by Rick Mills(?) I think it’s called “The High, Dry and Dusty”(?) about the cowboy line.
The High, Dry, and Dusty: Memories of the Cowboy Line
By: Rick W. Mills & James J. Reisdorff
ISBN: 0942035208 ISBN-13: 9780942035209
Publisher: South Platte Press - 1992
If u go to my YT channel myrailvideos & search Shawnee Jct you will see videos I took there [:)]
“Happy Trails, Cowboy Line - Chicago & North Western Abandons Line Across Northern Nebraska”
by Mills, Rick W. - from Trains, April 1993, p. 26
(abandonment C&NW Line Nebraska)
“Hot spots: Cornhusker crossroads - Fremont”
by Harmen, Robert R. - from Trains, May 1993, p. 70
(BN C&NW FE&MV Nebraska railfanning UP)
The “Cowboy Line” was abandoned in several separate sections. The major one was the segment between Norfolk and Chadron NE in the early 1990’s (ICC Dockets AB-1, Sub Nos. 230 and 249X). There was also an immediately prior abandonment between Crandall WY and Crawford NE, as a result of a catastrophic washout in the White River Canyon that essentially obliterated the railroad (ICC Docket AB-1 Sub-No. 236X). After the UP-CNW merger, UP abandoned the line segment between Orin Junction and Casper (STB Docket AB-33, Sub-No. 113). Most of this segment consisted of trackage rights over BN previously granted to permit removal of CNW’s parallel line. The segment between Norfolk and Fremont NE on the east end of the line was abandoned earlier in favor of trackage rights over UP. The segment on the west end of the line from Casper to Riverton and Lander was abandoned much earlier. I don’t have the date info for the latter abandonments immediately at hand, but I could find it out in the next couple of weeks, since I’ll be in a place that has relevant records.
I can tell you a lot more about these abandonments, since I was intimately involved in the abandonments of the Norfolk - Chadron and Crawford - Crandall segments. What parts are you interested in? A piece of the line survives as part of the Powder
Was the Cowboy Line ever part of some dream to reach the Pacific?
My earlier posting on the Cowboy Line described what happened to it, but didn’t discuss why it happened. I’ll try to briefly describe that here. Keep in mind, though, that this is almost completely from memory, so dates are approximate and may be slightly off.
By the late 1970’s, the Cowboy line was being kept alive primarily due to hope and mud. The “hope” (and plan) was that the line from Shawnee east would become part of CNW’s planned route from the Powder River Basin. The “mud” was the bentonite clay moving from South Dakota south on the Colony Line to Dakota Junction (west of Chadron) and then either west to the UP or east to Fremont.
The hope and mud both vanished in the 1980’s. The hope went first. Unable to obtain financing for its ambitious plan to build a new coal route which included the Cowboy Line across Nebraska, CNW turned to UP. The result was the existing UP coal route which only uses a small portion of the old Cowboy Line between Shawnee Jct and Crandall in Wyoming.
The mud went next, although its demise was a little more convoluted. CNW actually had two routes from the bentonite mining areas - the Colony Line / Cowboy route and a potentially alternate route via the Colony line and the line across South Dakota via Pierre (I say “potentially” because it wasn’t being used for bentonite due to bridge issues). By the mid 1980’s, CNW decided that it didn’t need two through routes from Rapid City, and applied to abandon the portion of the South Dakota route between Pierre and Rapid City (the “PRC Line”), which would have severed it as a through route. Unfortunately for CNW (and the Cowboy Line), the ICC, at the time, had an even number of commissioners and, when the time came for them to vote on the abandonment, it was a tie vote. A tie vo
In response to Victrola1, “dream” is the right word. CNW clearly had “dreams” at various times of extending the line beyond Lander to the Pacific Coast. In fact, it’s difficult to see why CNW would have built a rail line to a place like Lander if they weren’t thinking about an eventual extension west.
But CNW never made the decision to turn the “dream” into a reality. CNW certainly looked at a potential extension at various times (I believe Gene Lewis unearthed an old CNW study of a potential extension to Coos Bay), but decided against it for a variety of reasons. The decision by the Milwaukee Road to build a line to the Pacific Coast was one of those factors.
Keep in mind that, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, transcontinental rail traffic wasn’t nearly as important or attractive as it is today, since it required construction and operation of hundreds of miles of railroad across relatively unproductive territory. On the other hand, prior to the development of widespread trucking, most of CNW’s service territory was a traffic cornucopia. When the time came to back up the dream with hard cash, CNW probably decided it was better to concentrate their resources on their own service territory, and to rely on an alliance with UP for transcon traffic.