One of the issues faced by Milwaukee Road Lines West was their late arrival in the Pacific Northwest. Milwaukee Road salesmen were often the 3rd or 4th railroad to call on a customer, behind NP,GN,& UP. ( Even SP&S in some places ). Due to this, Lines West served as mainly an overhead bridge route, with little on-line traffic between Puget Sound and the Twin Cities. The Midwest areas of Milwaukee Road were over-built, with many seasonal branchlines that also produced little revenue for their size.
These same issues were present in my other favorite railroad, Erie Lackawanna. Much like Milwaukee Road in the West, EL managed to miss many of the large freight producing areas in the East,( Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, the Chemical Coast of Southern New Jersey ), or else served several large industrial areas on branchlines ( Cleveland, Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Cincinnati ). El also had an over-built system of coal mine branchlines in the Lackawanna River Valley of N.E. Pennsylvania, and a larger series of commuter train service branchlines in New Jersey ( ickh ). Both Milwaukee Road Lines West and EL's ex - Erie mainline offered straight shots across rural areas for fast running. Yes, this could have been an advantage in the coming era of deregulation and Intermodal growth; alas it happened ten years too late for both.