Milwaukee Road's Lines West did indeed have some of the West's Best Scenery. From the Musselshell River Valley, to Sixteen Mile Canyon with the incredible Eagle's Nest Tunnel & Trestle, to Pipestone Pass and the Clark Fork River: all of these were just in Montana. Then there was St. Paul Pass and The Bitterroot Mountains on the Montana / Idaho border, winding down Loop Creek to the quaint railroad town of Avery, ID., followed by the trestle across Lake Benewah. Further West there was the Columbia River crossing at Beverly, Washington, followed by the Kittitas Valley and Snoqualmie Pass. Now throw in the longest Electrified Mainline trackage in North America, 440 miles from Harlowton, Montana to Avery, Idaho, and another 216 miles between Othello and Seattle / Tacoma, Washington. Mix in electric locomotives from GE ( Boxcabs, Bipolars, Steeplecabs, & the immortal Little Joes ) and Westinghouse/Baldwin ( the Quills ), steam locomotives from switchers to Northerns to mallets for " The Gap " and various branchlines, and lots of early GE U-Boats and F-Unit / slug sets among the diesels.
Unfortunately, all that scenery didn't pay the bills, as Milwaukee Road would discontinue running the Olympian Hiawatha, West of Deer Lodge, MT., in 1961. Milwaukee Road boasted of having the shortest rail line between Chicago and Puget Sound, but they paid a penalty in having to go over & through the many mountain ranges ( Belt, Rocky, Bitterroot, Saddle, and Cascade ) of Lines West, while competitors Northern Pacific & Great Northern went around many of these same mountains. Milwaukee Road was the last transcontinental railroad to reach Puget Sound, and was therefore often the 3rd or even 4th railroad to call on a potential customer. ( Even in the Midwest, Milwaukee Road was rarely the BIG railroad in any town or traffic lane. ) Sadly, when Milwaukee started marketing their new trackage rights into Portland, OR. as a result of the merger of the Hill Lines into Burlington Northern in 1970, the increased traffic was falling through trackage that had suffered from years of deferred maintenance & apathy in the home offices. It was too late to save Milwaukee Road from a Third Bankruptcy; part of the reorganization plan included abandoning all lines West of Miles City, MT.