Here's just a quick update on the flooding of the old GN/Milwaukee Road lines out of Lewistown, Montana.

Below is a link & photo of the damage to the old Milwaukee Judith River Trestle:

[www.greatfallstribune.com]

Things don't look well for the entire Central Montana Railroad.

Here's a link to an article yesterday concerning the future of the Charlie Russell Chew Choo & the Central Montana Railroad in general.

[lewistownnews.com]

When I lived in Lewistown in the 1990's - all of the Milwaukee trestles along the old Lewistown/GF Line were "questionable" - in fact the photo I have of the original Charlie Russell Chew Choo on the old GN Spring Creek Trestle on my website homepage was probably the last train across on the trestle as it was taken out of service by the FRA shortly after that photo was taken.

I've got photos of the old Milwaukee trestles on that line of that time that shows that they were no doubt "safe" enough to run trains [as they have for the past 20 years or so] but...all the old Milwaukee Road trestles along that line were built in the early 19-teen's and have had minimal to zero maintenance even when the Milwaukee owned the line. Unfortunately, either a disaster like this Spring would have taken out a trestle - or just the fact they were all huge [and beautiful] metal structures that rust, etc. and need TLC and regular maintenance.

It doesn't look good for the future of the Central Montana Railroad.

Talk to ya later,
Dale Jones
[www.railroads-of-montana.com]