The Pacific Extension (Milwaukee Road) (2024)

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Last revised: August 23, 2024

By:Adam Burns

The then Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad had been inoperation since the late 1840's with a heritage dating back to the tinyMilwaukee & Mississippi Railroad which served its namesake city.By the 1880s the CM&StP had stretched to a more than 5,000-milesystem reaching several Midwestern states.

However, as the railroad'stop management saw it, this was aproblem. To effectively compete with rivals Northern Pacific and GreatNorthern Railways the CM&StP felt it needed its own lineto the west coast instead of simply receiving meager interchangetraffic, which garnered little money as long-haul freight was where the profits truly were.

History

The Milwaukee Road was not your typical Midwestern granger, or railroad in general. Even by the early 20th century most major Class I's were under the control of handful of men, names like Gould, Hill, and Harriman.

But not the Milwaukee; until its untimely end in 1985 the company was independent of these influential individuals, even staving off a potential buyout by James Hill.

Construction

In 1901 the first surveying work began and it was estimated the more than 1,400-mile western extensionwould cost the railroad around $45 million adding more than 25% to itstotal system mileage. However, four years later this number wasreadjusted to $60 million.

What made the extension so terriblyexpensive was partly due to the right-of-way costs. Unlike the GN andNP the CM&StP was not given free government land grants andhad to both purchase all of its land from private landowners as well astake over a number of small, new, or floundering railroads across theregion.

Still, this did not hinder the effort and in 1905 the railroad's boardapproved the building of what would become known as the Pacific Coast,or Puget Sound Extension.

A year later in 1906 the actual construction on the western extensioncommenced with the railroad itself building west from its western-mostterminus at the time, tiny MoBridge, South Dakota reaching more than1,000 miles into western Montana.

Overview

Sources (Above Table):

• Murray, Tom. Milwaukee Road, The. St. Paul: MBI Publishing, 2005.

• Schafer, Mike. Classic American Railroads. Osceola: MBI Publishing, 1996.

• Scribbins, Jim.Milwaukee Road Remembered. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota, 2008 (Second Edition).

• Sol, Michael (Milwaukee Road Archives)

• Wood, Charles R. and Wood, Dorothy M. Milwaukee Road West. Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, 1972.

• Clark, Rodney A. Milwaukee Electrification, The: A Proud Era Passes. July-August, 1973.

From Seattle, heading east, the line was constructed by contractor Horace Chapin Henry, which completed the 450-mile stretch into western Montana.

Amazingly, in justthreeshort years the entire extension had been completed and on May 19, 1909 a Golden Spike was driven at Garrison, Montana commemorating the opening of the new route. Not only was the line built in record time but it also was an engineering marvel.

While the Puget Sound Extension would ultimately cross no less than five different mountain ranges on its way to Seattle including the Belts, Bitterroots, Cascades, Rockies, and Saddles it did so at a much lower ruling grade than its competitors.

The line would also be at least 18 miles shorter than either the NP's or GN's, and traveled through fewer population centers cutting down transit times even further, as well as giving the CM&StP a more direct route.

Completion

Perhaps, though, most advantageous was the fact the railroad now could boast that it was the onlytrue transcontinental whose own rails stretched from Chicago to Seattle(the Northern Pacific and Great Northern's lines reached only as fareast as the Twin Cities meaning they had to transfer their traffic overto the CM&StP or ally Chicago, Burlington & Quincy for the restof the journey).

Less than two months after the Extension wascompleted it opened to freight traffic on July 4, 1909. However, itwasn't until a year later on July 10, 1910 that the first passengertrains rolled over the new line.

In an attempt to compete with the GNand NP for dominance in the transcontinental passenger market the CM&StP unveiled their new heavyweight trains the Columbian and Olympian with the latter being the flagship of the fleet.

Electrification

Just a few years after the new transcontinental line had opened theCM&StP quickly discovered how difficult it was to operate trainsthrough rugged mountain ranges, even on a route so well engineered, anddecided in an unprecedented move to electrify significant sections ofthe route.

Thus, the legend of the Milwaukee Road was born. Construction on the first phase of electrification project beganin 1914 at Harlowton, Montana and would reach into the northwesternregion of Idaho at Avery.

This first section was completed in November, 1916, and in 1917 the railroad would also electrify its main linebetween Othello and Seattle, Washington with the final wires strung andcompleted by July of 1927 reaching Seattle Union Station in the downtowndistrict of the city (this station was shared with Union Pacific andtoday still stands, restored).

There would remain a "gap" between Averyand Othello that would never be electrified, initially because therailroad just didn't have the money, even though it was often considered.

For power the railroad used 110KV 3 phase AC transmission lines and converted this down to a 3,000-volt direct current (DC) system using motor generator sets located inside 22 line-side substations.

At the time and for many years the electrified western extensionwas the longest such freight operation in the world at 656 miles andultimately a number of European countries would emulate the CM&StP'ssystem.

Unfortunately for the railroad the western extension,including its electrification had come at an extremely heavy price of$257 million, more than four times the readjusted amount of $60 millionin 1905. At the time freight volume had not been what the railroadexpected and ultimately it was forced into bankruptcy in 1925.

A yearlater it was sold and reorganized, and in 1927 renamed the Chicago,Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad as well as officially adopting its nickname as the Milwaukee Road.

System Map (1944)

That year also saw the railroad open its own resort leading into theYellowstone National Park in Gallatin Gateway, Montana called theGallatin Gateway Inn,which would compete with what the Northern Pacific and Great Northernhad to offer.

For power the Milwaukee Road used a number of different electric locomotives on the Extension including General Electric-built boxcabs (Class EP-1 and EF-1), the unique Bi-Polars (Class EP-2), rare Baldwin-Westinghouse Quills (ClassEP-3 they were somewhat similar to boxcabs) and finally the last motorsever purchased the highly powerful (and popular) "Little Joes" (Class EP-4 and EF-4).

The Little Joes were purchased in the early 1950s to replace theMilwaukee Road’s aging fleet of electrics which consisted of elderly GEboxcabs; classes EP-1, EF-1, and EP-2 (Bi-Polars).

The Bi-Polars enjoyed relatively long lives and were scrapped in 1962 while the original EP-1s and EF-1s were retired following the purchase of the EF-4s in 1950 (however, boxcab classes EF-2, EF-3, and EF-5 remained in service along with the Little Joes until the end).

While the Extension became an efficient and reliable main line, even after the CMStP&P's reorganization in the mid-1920s the route still failed to live up to expectations, particularly with the oncoming of the Great Depression in 1929. Even the surge of traffic during World War II was not enough for the railroad to stave off a second bankruptcy in 1945.

Interestingly, the best years of Lines West lay ahead. In 1947 the Milwaukee Road canceled the premierOlympianand inaugurated the poshOlympian Hiawathabetween Chicago and Seattle.

This train was custom-built by therailroad and featured the highly popular "Super Dome" and "Skytop"observation cars, which were hustled through Montana by matching LittleJoe EP-4s and by boxcab EP-1s west of Othello, Washington. For reasons unknown (although the railroad claimed lack of ridership) the Milwaukee discontinued the Olympian Hiawathaby 1961.

However, in 1958 it began trailer-on-flatcar (TOFC) orpiggyback service between Seattle and Chicago, a move that would see thePacific Coast Extension explode in traffic growth. Five years later in1963 the railroad introduced its high-priority "XL Special" (westbound#261) and "Thunderhawk" (eastbound #262) scheduled freights.

As traffic out of Seattle continued to increase through the 1960sand into the 1970s, so did the Milwaukee Road's share of this freight.The merger of Burlington Northern in 1970 played right into therailroad's hands giving it several new traffic interchange points.

During this time the CMStP&P essentially controlled the Port ofSeattle as it commanded nearly 80% of its originating traffic and alsoheld roughly 50% of the total container traffic originating from thePacific Northwest in general.

In other words, the Milwaukee Road wascompletely dominating freight volume between Chicago and Seattle (the railroad could also shave almost a full day offtransit times compared to that of the BN).

Decline

The demise of the Milwaukee Road had already begun, however. Top management at the time had all but given up on wanting to run a railroad. In 1972 it decided to discontinue (but not scrap) electrified operations on the Coast Division between Othello and Seattle.

Then, in 1974 the railroad canceled its electrification completely running its final Little Joes in June of 1974 between Harlowton, Montana and Avery, Idaho. Maintenance of the route was all but halted through the 1970s and 10 mph slow orders were rampant during the line's final years.

By 1977 the very poorly managed Milwaukee Road entered bankruptcy and in a stunning move made two years later, decided to scrap its entire Extension west of Terry, Montana, some 1,100 miles of track.

Abandonment

And so, as Michael Sol notes, at 8:47 PM on March 15, 1980 the final dead freight east, Extra 5802 (led by U36C #5802) departed eastboundfrom Tacoma, Junction, Washington.

The trip was well-documented, especially by a group of dedicated railfans which took a series of memorable images of the train slowly trudged its way along the decaying railroad. Ironically, the best engineered line through the northern Rockies is the only such route to ever be formally abandoned.

Today, much of the original right-of-way through Montana, Idaho, and Washington remains in place although it is now owned by locals save for small stretches in Idaho and virtually all of the line through Washington (which is owned by the state).

Why Abandonment?

Why was the Milwaukee Road's Lines West abandoned and why did the railroad fail? Much of it can be explained in mismanagement following its 1925 bankruptcy, which is partially covered at the Milwaukee Road article.

In addition, the then-Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul (or simply the "St. Paul") was undercut in its attempt to build the Pacific Extension by E.H. Harriman and Northern Lines interests, which acquired most of the necessary property along the route between Montana and Washington.

The group then resold the land to the railroad at inflated prices, driving up the final cost from the expected $50 million, to $250 million. This factor, coupled with financial mishandling of the project and a decision to electrify the line when officials were already well-aware of the Pacific's Extension astronomical cost, resulted in the once-prosperous St. Paul road into bankruptcy by 1925.

The receivership then allowed vultures, like the private banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb to slowly gain control of the railroad and bleed the company of cash for more than a decade before finally losing their grip when the system entered its second bankruptcy in 1935.

Unfortunately, the company's plight only slightly improved from a managerial standpoint at this time as the company's incompetent board still remained in control after the 1945 receivership, which more or less continued through the 1977 bankruptcy.

In general, management ineptness dating back generations can explain the railroad's failure. Thomas Ploss, in his excellent book "The Nation Pays Again," explains one such incomprehensible blunder:

"The transcontinental line was owned outright by the Milwaukee Road except for the 30-mile Pacific Coast Railroad that lay between the Cascade Range and Seattle, the last mountain range westbound from Chicago.

This little line had been built for logging and speculative purposes late in the 19th century and when 'The St. Paul' indulged in its dreams of empire conveniently provided a leased access to Seattle's deepwater port without the necessity of building a new line down the slope.

Soon the lumber in the area was logged off...and thereafter the Pacific Coast Railroad's business was 90% that of its tenant, which became the Milwaukee Road.

Pacific Coast's lease with the Milwaukee Road provided that the railroad with most usage of the line shown by counting railroad wheels would be taxed with the proportionate amount of maintenance expense. Thus, Milwaukee Road paid for 90% of the maintenance.

The Pacific Coast Railroad's management sometime in the late 1920s reorganized itself into a subsidiary of a holding company and advertised the railroad for sale beginning in 1930.

For twenty years the line remained unsold. Then, on June 30, 1950, Great Northern Railroad paid $100 for an option to buy Pacific Coast Railroad's shares for $1.7 million on terms of nine annual installments at 3% annual interest, or about the same that the Crowley management had committed itself to pay for but one train of 'Olympian Hiawatha' rolling stock in 1947.

When Great Northern's purchase application came before the ICC, that body recorded Milwaukee Road Western Counsel Lutterman as making no representation whatever to protect his client's interest in preserving its sole ownership of the line passing into the hands of a hostile competitor.

For 30 years thereafter, until abandonment day in 1980, the Milwaukee Road paid 90% or more of the maintenance costs of this little line - and used that fact to justify its application to abandon its entire transcontinentalline." (Emphasis added.)

Incredible...

Photo Gallery

Sources

• Murray, Tom. Milwaukee Road, The. St. Paul: MBI Publishing, 2005.

• Ploss, Thomas. Nation Pays Again, The. Ploss (Self Published): January, 1985.

• Scribbins, Jim. Hiawatha Story, The. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.

• Scribbins, Jim.Milwaukee Road Remembered. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota, 2008 (Second Edition).

• Sol, Michael (Milwaukee Road Archives)

• Solomon, Brian and Gruber, John. Milwaukee Road's Hiawatha's, The. St. Paul: Voyageur Press, 2006.

• Wood, Charles R. and Wood, Dorothy M. Milwaukee Road West. Seattle: Superior Publishing Company, 1972.