Which Western Railroad do you miss?

Please vote I am very curious.[|)]

This is a hard decision between CNW and ATSF or CB&Q. Anyone eles out there?[8)]

Some of these are still around, like the UP.

Kettle Valley RR.

Big Sky Blue is the most beutiful paint scheme ever!

The Southern Pacific is not quite dead yet – some of their grungy locomotives are still being used mixed in with newer Union Pacific locomotives on the Sunset Route through southern Arizona between Yuma and New Mexico, and probably further East.

i chose GN. i like the logo, the paint schemes, and they fit in with the BN stuff i plan on getting. some of the others are CNW, CB&Q, WC, MILW, and Rock Island.

I miss the Rio Grande, and their Zephyr. I hope the Ski Train runs again each winter. Denver to Salt Lake City & back. I hope to be able to ride the Durango & Silverton and the Cumbres Pass narrow lines.

What about the Chcago Milwaukee St Paul & Pacific! Sob

MILW.
Little Joes, Olympian Hiawatha the Station at Tacoma, and the one in Chicago.

And of course, CNS&M

Doug, in Utah

Of all the raulroadsi n the western part of our country, I miss the Southern Pacific and the Rio Grande. They were the true masters of mountain railroading. It’s a shame that mega-mergers result in tossing rail history into the “ditch of the obsolete”. The Golden Rule is: “Those that have the gold make the rules”! It was great to see some of those units [SP & D&RGW] sometimes lashed into some of the power which ran thru Illinois and Wisconsin and Iowa. I saw SP running in Arizona and California. Rio Grande units bursting out of Moffit Tunnel was always a treat too. Farewell to those pioneer roads.
Don Wick, West Bend, WI

Milwaukee.Especially through Montana.

Well I guess you can tell which railroad I miss the most by my signature line. But I miss them all as they are part of my childhood memories watching them while growing up in Chicago. You think they’ll be around forever. I’ve heard the same said by the old timers about steam engines.

Happy Holidays!

As you may have heard, Canadian National bought out BC Rail. I’ll probably miss those BC rail cars that always whent by my granma’s house.

Of course I miss the ATSF the most. I also miss the Rio Grande and MKT ( I didn’t see any Katy, but wished I did), and CNW.

Take care,

Russell

  1. Rio Grande, but the Santa Fe is 1a. Also don’t forget the Western Pacific.

Tom

BC Rail

The SP&S tops my list, followed by the Milwaukee Road, which curiously is missing from the list. “Other” doesn’t do it justice.

Please note, Wisconsin Central doesn’t make the cut as a “western” railroad, while someone could make the argument that C&NW is perhaps nominally so (although in my opinion it doesn’t qualify as nominal western railroad, the Powder River Basin not withstanding). A western railroad, to many of us who live in the West, is one that operated through or west of Rockies – SP, WP, UP, Santa Fe, SP&S, NP, GN, MILW, D&RGW, CP, CN, BCR, et al.

D&RG was a fiesty little Class 1 that whiped mountains, weather, competition, and economics to hold on to and survive in it’s own little nich. SP was too toxic for it to survive, and therefor fell.
I am also a fan of GN and AT&SF. Most of GN is still visible, albiet in ghosts.
I don’t care what the sign on the side of the loco says. If fit is Scarlet & Silver Warbonnet, it is SANTA FE.

I live in colorado and read a lot about them