It logically could have in excess of 76% of the Port of Seattle’s business ONLY IF the Milwaukee Road served in excess of 76% of the destinations of ALL the Port of Seattle’s business – a tall order that given truck competition and that it was basically a one-direction route out of the area, in contrast to highway and other rail competition. Meanwhile, through the 1970s and beyond, BN continued to crank out about three times the daily traffic than the Milwaukee did at its peak, and that’s because other than Seattle and Tacoma, the amount of traffic the Milwaukee handled elsewhere compared to UP and BN was inconsequential. And what “today railroads are all about” are heavy unit trains (in this case coal and grain) for which the Milwaukee would likely have been nearly shut out due to its multiple severe grades and not accessing the actual port facilities via a viable route (or at all).
This is a curious post; Obviously, Interstate Highways were more developed in the East earlier than in places like Montana, but they were coming. By 1969, I-94/I-90 was just about complete across North Dakota and much of Minnesota, about a third of Montana and nearly all of Washington; by 1979 it was complete just about the entire way from Chicago to Seattle, except for a few short stretches in Montana, and the well-known holdouts at Wallace, Idaho and east of Coeur d’Alene. Using the stated logic, one could expect a similar decline in freight traffic lost to trucks as the Interstate Highway was completed across the Northern Tier.
Ver Montana: “NONE of this is true, nor is any of it anything but speculation without any documentation to support. Again, reiterating: It’s interesting that “transcontinental passenger rail service was doomed to be unprofitable,” but evidently only on the Milwaukee Road – but not on the Union Pacific? Unlikely indeed.”
This is simply false. The facts are well-documented, and those facts may simply not be understood by someone with zero economic expertise, and even less actual knowledge of the Milwaukee Road.
The comment above doesn’t even make sense. The Union Pacific “did not” see that passenger traffic had become hugely unprofitable? It was the entire point of railroad lobbying for Amtrak, or something like it, during the 1960s. The Milwaukee saw it clearly by 1955 and exploited the “situation” to … “get out,” and not only continue to provide the same passenger service to key locations out West, but add locations, AND turn a profit.
Just “stupid people,” right? Not nearly as smart about railroad economics as somebdy who has no background or experience in such issues. [:(]
Mark Meyer: "By 1972 – when the Milwaukee was in its temporary traffic increase as a result of the BN merger – the schedule of the XL Special from Chicago to Tacoma had been lengthened from 56.5 hours to 66 hours and was averaging 72 hours.
And, of course, belying all of Mr. Meyer’s huffing and puffing, he still fails to explain why Milwaukee Road stock ultimately returned a substantially higher value to its owners than BN stock ever did. Or why Lou Menk “got the boot” there. Or why BN ended up with a 95% Operating Ratio.
Questions, questions!
There is no evidence that taking over the UP “Cities” streamliners was profitable over the life of the contract (15.5 years), especially when one considers the millions of dollars of required upgrades, and the lack of freight business garnered. That the number of UP passenger trains were “so profitable” that the number was slashed by 50% in the first 5 years of operation due to declining ridership notwithstanding, the real question is whether the Milwaukee would have still received the same amount of interchange at Council Bluffs (1 to 3 trains per day) if they HADN’T spent all those millions on passenger trains. Odds are, they would have, and their route (prior to the upgrade) could have handled it. Even if there was evidence of passenger train profitability over the entire 15.5 years (unlikely, since this wasn’t most other places in the country), the Milwaukee likely would have been better off without spending those millions. And if the Milwaukee &l
Actually, no one is asking these questions because either no one cares, or they understand context, which is lost on some. Stock value of course depends on many aspects of a corporation including how it is diversified.
From a railroad perspective, a 95% operating ratio trumps abandonment every time. From a legacy perspective, BN (and Menk who after BN led International Harvester) will be remembered as a success, building thousands of miles of track to increase capacity to accommodate a huge coal demand becoming (by far) the country’s number one bulk commodity carrier as a prelude to buying ATSF and creating today’s BNSF. Contrast this to the legacy of the Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension, fading into greater irrelevancy with each passing day……
–Mark Meyer
You’re not missing a thing. You’re in touch with historical reality.
You can learn a lot from just observing employee timetables from the 1970s.
Here’s a Milwaukee timetable from 1974 at the supposed height of the traffic boom when the railroad was running 3 or 4 trains per day:
http://wx4.org/to/foam/sp/maps/perryETT/1974-12-01CMStP%26PRockyMtn%26Coast2-SheldonPerry.pdf
In the summer of 1973 (when I was 14) I went with my folks on a car trip from the Twin Cities to Seattle. As I recall, at the Montana border it noted that Montana didn’t have speed limits - and soon thereafter, the interstate became a gravel road!
Oh, come on, it wasn’t that bad. The Montana portion was paved - all two lanes of it! And Montana DID have a speed limit: “Reasonable and prudent.”
“Reasonable and prudent” was a Catch-22 law, and actually could work both ways. After it was reinstated in 1995, I recall meeting a Highway Patrolman on a two-lane road north of Great Falls doing 92 MPH on a clear day with dry pavement. Didn’t get stopped. But that next winter, a friend who was driving a crew van for the railroad on a Forest Service road in Northwest Montana had the vehicle slide into the ditch after she was stopped - it was THAT icy. She was subsequently ticketed for going “faster than the conditions allowed.”
The argument behind creating Amtrak was keeping passenger service. If not for some behind the scenes palyers. Amtrak would not be in existence today… Most of Nixons staff didn’t care about passenger service. They were banking on subsidized air transport and buses…
Mark Meyer: “There is no evidence that taking over the UP “Cities” streamliners was profitable over the life of the contract (15.5 years), especially when one considers the millions of dollars of required upgrades, and the lack of freight business garnered.”
Since Mark Meyer actually knows nothing about any of this, his endless speculation is both interesting and entertaining.
However, we DO know, from internal studies, that the Union Pacific contract with the Milwaukee was profitable, and I can point directly to an internal study that says so, and by how much, courtesy of Milt Clark, a neighbor and good friend who actually had long experience at the Milwaukee Road.
“Report of Committee on Possible Mergers of Union Pacific – Rock Island – Southen Pacific Railroads, May 3, 1963.”
"B. Passenger Train
Mark Meyer: "Mr. Sol’s “expertise” is debatable. On the website indicated and elsewhere, one will find his treatises on the Milwaukee Road. Specific to the Olympian Hiawatha, one of his claims is especially entertaining from the “American Rails” website: “From these numbers it is clear to see that despite what you may have previously read or understood about Milwaukee’s Northwest flagship, the railroad was far more efficient than its competitors with transcontinental rail service.”
A representative example. I never wrote that about the Olympian Hiawatha. Someone else did. A complete fabrication.
However, from “that source,” any remarks about “expertise” have their own, comic, value! [:D]
Reviewing anything Mr. Meyer writes is always worth the effort, or, at least, the entertainment!
From some time “back,” Mark Meyer
“Michael Sol When there are 31 derailments in 28 days, ANY railroad would have business “backed up.” That usually happens when the railroad is closed.”
In his usual fashion, complete ignorance of the Milwaukee Road, a railroad he knew nothing about, and proves it daily, shows there.
I am very familiar with the portion that had “31 derailments in 28 days.”
For the record – something Mark Meyer desperately needs – the Avery Hill was virtually completely rebuilt 1971, 1972 and 1973, and then, in October, 1973, the derailments “hit.”
The record of that rebuild can be found here: Milepost 1750 to 1773. Track Profile, Montana Division, 1976. https://www.milwaukeeroadarchives.com/Construction/Milwaukee%20Profiles/TrackChartMontanaDivision1976.pdf
The Avery Hill had substantial additional 132 lb steel added, new ties, and 4" of new “Clinton Crushed Quartzite” which was the very high grade quartzite purchased from BN’s excellent source at Clinton, Montana – crushed quartzite ballast. It was, in fact, the “best part of the entire system.”
After two years of rebuilding the entire section, why, in October, 1973, did “the trains start falling off the track,” as Bill Brodsky pointed out, “31 derailments in 28 days?”
The Joes had been taken off as motive power for a “trial” for the month of October, 1973. The timing looked … like that HAD to have something to do with it. Dynamometer car 5000 went up and down the Avery Hill, trying to find out … why? It couldn
[quote user=“TRR”]
Reviewing anything Mr. Meyer writes is always worth the effort, or, at least, the entertainment!
From some time “back,” Mark Meyer
“Michael Sol When there are 31 derailments in 28 days, ANY railroad would have business “backed up.” That usually happens when the railroad is closed.”
In his usual fashion, complete ignorance of the Milwaukee Road, a railroad he knew nothing about, and proves it daily, shows there.
I am very familiar with the portion that had “31 derailments in 28 days.”
For the record – something Mark Meyer desperately needs – the Avery Hill was virtually completely rebuilt 1971, 1972 and 1973, and then, in October, 1973, the derailments “hit.”
The record of that rebuild can be found here: Milepost 1750 to 1773. Track Profile, Montana Division, 1976. https://www.milwaukeeroadarchives.com/Construction/Milwaukee%20Profiles/TrackChartMontanaDivision1976.pdf
The Avery Hill had substantial additional 132 lb steel added, new ties, and 4" of new “Clinton Crushed Quartzite” which was the very high grade quartzite purchased from BN’s excellent source at Clinton, Montana – crushed quartzite ballast. It was, in fact, the “best part of the entire system.”
After two years of rebuilding the entire section, why, in October, 1973, did “the trains start falling off the track,” as Bill Brodsky pointed out, “31 derailments in 28 days?”
The Joes had been taken off as motive power for a “trial” for the month of October, 1973. The timing looked … like that HAD to have something to do with it. Dynamometer car 5000 went u
For those having a “WTF” moment here, you’re not alone. It’s from another thread altogether, somewhere else, and completely irrelevant. But then the point is character assassination rather than any attempt to convey information.
But to clarify: The AAR’s explanation is correct.
My input that was that 31 derailments in 28 days was not desirable thing, and it was self-inflicted: The tunnels were lowered to increase clearance, but instead of lowering them sufficiently to accommodate the new ballast, the Milwaukee didn’t do that, they just didn’t put ballast in the tunnel…so there was a dip in the track at each end of the tunnel causing the problem. While other railroads did experience some problems with the cars, the criticality was nowhere near the better-than-one-per-day on the Milwaukee Road. In other words, you get what you pay for.
Also, for clarification: BN didn’t have a “Clinton facility” claimed by Mr. Sol. On Burlington Northern (and Northern Pacific), the ballast pit was always known as McQuarrie (3.7 miles west of Clinton). Clinton was best-known for its annual (since discontinued) Testicle Festival. (As long as we’re focusing on nothing to do with this thread.)
It also shows that when the Milwaukee needed first class ballast, it looked to the competition that had it and used it: Burlington Northern. Or, as Fred Hyde described the Milwaukee Road in Montana: “the finest dirt track mainline in the west.”
Thanks again to Mr. Sol for, as always, pointing out another Milwaukee Road Lines West deficiency.
&nbs
This is
Mark Meyer continues to spin fantasies about 1) a railroad he knew nothing about, 2) regading matters that he, personally, had no experience with.
He brings to mind Groucho Marx’s comment to an annoying writer who wrote a book and sent it to Groucho to read. Groucho’s response: “I received your book. Thank you for sending it. I couldn’t stop laughing. Some day I intend on reading it.”
It isn’t what Mark Meyer writes that is necessarily so objectionable, but “what he leaves out,” i.e. the “other half of the story.”
These were Train #261’s running times, with its fast, high value, freight.
Per Rob Leachman, who actually does have the experience that Mr. Meyer lacks altogether.
"District Mileage Avg. MPH (incl. work) (excl. work)
Bensenville - Aberdeen 700 42.2 52.2 mph
Aberdeen - Harlowton 629 44.7 46.3 mph
Harlowton - Avery 438 39.8 43.0 mph
Avery - Tide Flats 419 28.2 31.8 mph
"You will note, this is a train in mountain territory that is averaging 43 mph in the Rocky Mountains between Harlowton and Avery, over three mountain ranges. A truck would be pushing it to achieve that average.
"The 10 mph difference between “includes work” and “excludes work” on the Bensenville-Aberdeen portion – the largest such difference – is due to four pickups and the St. Paul fill set-off – the most “work” of the entir
Mr. Meyer: “But I believe the ICC didn’t go far enough. For instance, it should have also asked, …”.
Initially, you denied any such proposal to save Lines West had ever been profitable, or that ANY efforts to save it had happened, at all. What happened to THAT?
Mark Meyer: "Examples: Grain train Great Falls to Longview, 100% more expensive via NewMil; Chicago to Portland, five major grades on NewMil versus zero on BN); Seattle to Chicago, four major grades on NewMil versus two on BN).:
We don’t actually know that. You made it up.
What we DO know is that no shipper would make a decision the way that Mark Meyer proposes. Why would they?
Mark Meyer has never “shipped” an ounce of freight in his entire life.