If you are looking for any new or detailed information, you won't find it in this article in the Spokesman-Review!

The statement below broad brushes about 40 years of history with little supporting detail
quote:
Another electric segment was Othello to Tacoma, but the debt from the project was staggering, many times the original estimate. Diesel engines ended the project and no more
electric segments were built after the two.
endquote

It can be argued that the Milwaukee's pacific extension never should have been built. MILW, along with NP and GN, expected tremendous increases in traffic from the orient but apparently did not consider the effect that the Panama Canal would have on ocean traffic moving to the east coast.

The Rocky Mountain division electrification was completed in 1915. The Coast division electrification was completed in 1919 although the portion from Black River Jct to Seattle was not electrified until 1927. I believe that the last use of an electric on the Coast division was boxcab E39, used on a work train in July 1972. Electric operation on the Rocky Mountain division ended on June 16, 1974. Less than 6 years later, March 1, 1980 the Milwaukee embargoed lines west of Miles City Montana and they were done in the west.

Here is an interesting quote from Wikipedia:

The electrification was successful from an engineering and operational standpoint, but building the Puget Sound Extension and electrification had cost $257 million (equal to $3,490,000,000 today), not the $45 million the road had originally budgeted for reaching the Pacific. The debt load and reduced revenues brought the road to bankruptcy in 1925.

It sounds like the construction costs cited are the entire cost, including both electrified zones, of everything west of Mobridge SD, the starting point of the pacific extension

Another interesting quote from the S/R article:
The Milwaukee operated many prominent passenger routes over the years, including the City
of Los Angeles, the City of San Francisco and the Challenger.

Hello; ever heard of the Olympian, or the Olympian Hiawatha, or for that matter, the Columbian? The trains mentioned in the article were all UP trains that the MILW handled from Chicago to Omaha beginning in 1955.

The article doesn't bother to mention that Spokane wasn't even on the Milwaukee's mainline which bypassed Spokane about 30 miles to the south which ran between Plummer Jct ID and Maringo WA. MILW passenger trains operated (east to west) on a MILW branch from Plummer to Manito WA then a joint UP-MILW line Manito to Spokane, then trackage rights on UP from Spokane to Maringo WA.

It is hard to believe that the Milwaukee has been gone from the west for over 35 years!!!