Re: MRL's Bitterroot branch out of service
Author: Sam Richards
Date: 10-20-2011 - 14:02
The branch is about 60 miles long, to Darby. For the past several years, the run has ended at Hamilton, at the 50-mile mark.
I haven't made a real survey, but as of July 2010 when I was last there, the branch appeared to have two regular shippers and two other sporadic ones (maybe one or two more in Missoula proper). When I was attending UM in Missoula in the early 80s, that branch ran three times a week with 20-25 cars per train. The loss of the two lumber mills in Darby in the mid-1990s was the crushing blow.