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Re: Would container traffic have saved the Milwaukee Road?
Author: Mark Meyer
Date: 04-10-2013 - 10:55
There indeed might be enough business to “support three transcon railroads” across the Northern Tier, but why have them if they’re all not necessary? Indeed, there are more than that now, considering that CN and CP are also involved in moving traffic from the Pacific Coast to the American Midwest.
The differences in grade between the Milwaukee and the competition were not “minor,” and always matter. In fact, there are very few examples when advantages in profile do not matter. UP doesn’t route through freight traffic via Moffat tunnel or Tennessee Pass because its route across Wyoming is vastly superior; BNSF routes traffic from Denver to California via Amarillo because the extra miles are worth avoiding the 3.5 grades of Raton Pass. BNSF moves coal trains from the PRB to Denver via Scottsbluff and Sterling rather than the direct route through Cheyenne due to a much more level route. In other words, much like the horrible trackage rights situations that Milwaukee was granted between Bellingham and Portland (requiring moving traffic over very steep grades rather than not), the amount of motive power needed is always a major factor in determining the cost of operating any train.
Most notable in determining the viability of the Milwaukee route (or lack thereof) would be consideration of heavier trains running today had the railroad survived. Today, BNSF can move such a train west from Havre, Montana to any destination on the west coast with 4 DC or 3 AC locomotives (and if 4 DC locomotives, one can be removed en route at Whitefish or west). Compare this to what would be required on the Milwaukee, and one hardly even knows where to begin. Such a train would require 5 C44 locomotives out of Harlowton to pull the grade at Loweth; then 7 for the grade at Pipestone Pass; also 7 for the grade at St. Paul Pass, and 8 for the grade departing Beverly for the Saddle Mountains. Granted, the train would need minimal power (3 units) to ascend Snoqualmie Pass, but at least 4 would likely be required for sufficient dynamic braking descending the pass. Any scenario is cumbersome and expensive. Would the Milwaukee have chosen to simply run 8 locomotives all the way from Harlowton to Seattle or Tacoma (versus 3 or 4 for BN) or would they endure the added expense of stationing helper power and helper crews at Harlowton, Butte, Avery, and Beverly to help each train? The amount of power needed and the added expense of crews and power modifications boggles the mind to the point that it’s easy to see why the “opportunity” for this to have occurred hasn’t come to pass. The only thing more mind-boggling would be considering would be considering the “what if” scenario had the Milwaukee survived separately and had to move such grain trains for places like Longview or Kalama up the 3 percent grade of Tacoma Hill! Unlikely as it would be unfathomable.
It’s true that many railroads move such heavy trains over steep grades today. The difference in the case of the Milwaukee route is that, unlike those today, the Milwaukee would not have been a palatable alternative. Case in point: today, Montana Rail Link. Much of the traffic moved on this route today is in the form of very heavy unit trains that have to be moved across two mountain passes in Montana with grades similar to those encountered on the Milwaukee (actually a bit worse for the westward trip). While the use of helpers on these two grades is the limiting factor for the amount of traffic that can be handled, the advantage that the MRL route would have over the Milwaukee route (as a comparison) would be that once the train has crested Mullan Pass (the last hill), the grade to destination for these trains never exceeds 1 percent. This is because MRL enjoys a water-level route through the remainder of Western Montana and when the train regains BNSF rails, a similar trip around the Cascades (along the Columbia River), not over them. The Rio Grande used to boast that their route was the one “Through the Rockies, not around them,” but today UP runs only the freight traffic that has to go that way through, and everything else around. The Milwaukee (unlike MRL/BN(BNSF) after conquering the grades of Southcentral Montana would have two more steep grades, 1.7 percent St. Paul Pass and the 2.2 percent climb of the Saddle Mountains – and no alternate route.
Yes, it was proposed that the Milwaukee be folded into BN in the early 1970s. Even had the Milwaukee infrastructure been in better shape making the marriage more palatable, it’s difficult to see where the railroad map would look much different than it does today anyway. One would hope that Milwaukee’s route over Snoqualmie – the route west of Terry’s one redeeming feature – would have been saved, but there would be little reason to save anything else. The line through Roundup and Harlowton had no online business compared to the route through Billings and its junctions with routes going south, and while Mullan is steeper than Pipestone going west, it is flatter going east. West of Continental Divide, as stated earlier, there’s little reason that the torturous climbs up St. Paul Pass and away from the Columbia River at Beverly would have been preserved in favor of much gentler routes on BN.
As for claim of some entities would renovate the Milwaukee electrification, including “closing the gap” between Avery and Othello, and provide enough electric locomotives for 4.5 trains per day, which would have resulted in savings that would have paid for the entire “upgrade”: Again, one wonders why something so obviously beneficial wasn’t done. The reason is because it isn’t. Of course the whole concept is dubious when one considers that the Milwaukee never had the financial wherewithal to install longer sidings, put in block signals between Plummer and Marengo, install CTC anywhere, or add wayside detectors, all of which were commonplace on most other railroads in the 1970s. But that aside, the real inefficiency of an electric operation is when the whole railroad isn’t and other railroads are not. While there are savings in operating an electric railway from Harlowton to Tacoma, there is tremendous cost when you are moving a grain train from Great Falls to Portland and the power needs to be changed from diesel to electric at Harlowton, and then back to diesel at Tacoma, as an example. The major cost would be simply the locomotive dwell or train delay by needing to change all the power at Harlowton. Indeed, diesel locomotive power could run through on electrified territory, but we have already established that the Milwaukee is much more expensive when compared to the competing routes in this regard. But to best capture the benefits of electric power, an all-electric operation would be preferable, but this heightens the cost of dwell and delay. Case in point: The Milwaukee has a derailment at Beverly, Washington and the railroad is closed for 24 hours. Eastward trains sit for a day, and arrive a day late at Harlowton. Also at Harlowton would be a day’s worth of westbound trains waiting for power off the delayed eastbound trains, and so it would continue as this would make the westbound trains late, etc. In today’s world where trains operate literally from coast to coast, having a very sizable fleet of locomotives that are restricted to only about 850 miles of main line would be a costly utilization of assets, completely unable to respond to fluctuations in locomotive demand elsewhere on the railroad. They also cannot be used to handle Milwaukee trains on a detour route during a service interruption or be used to payback horsepower hours if need be because other railroads wouldn’t use them. The only way that savings could be realized for an electrified operation would be that most other routes – including other railroads – would be similarly operated. But then, if the BN and UP were electrified also, they would require correspondingly fewer locomotive resources, and be less expensive to operate than the Milwaukee, and we come back full circle to where we are today.
The differences in grade between the Milwaukee and the competition were not “minor,” and always matter. In fact, there are very few examples when advantages in profile do not matter. UP doesn’t route through freight traffic via Moffat tunnel or Tennessee Pass because its route across Wyoming is vastly superior; BNSF routes traffic from Denver to California via Amarillo because the extra miles are worth avoiding the 3.5 grades of Raton Pass. BNSF moves coal trains from the PRB to Denver via Scottsbluff and Sterling rather than the direct route through Cheyenne due to a much more level route. In other words, much like the horrible trackage rights situations that Milwaukee was granted between Bellingham and Portland (requiring moving traffic over very steep grades rather than not), the amount of motive power needed is always a major factor in determining the cost of operating any train.
Most notable in determining the viability of the Milwaukee route (or lack thereof) would be consideration of heavier trains running today had the railroad survived. Today, BNSF can move such a train west from Havre, Montana to any destination on the west coast with 4 DC or 3 AC locomotives (and if 4 DC locomotives, one can be removed en route at Whitefish or west). Compare this to what would be required on the Milwaukee, and one hardly even knows where to begin. Such a train would require 5 C44 locomotives out of Harlowton to pull the grade at Loweth; then 7 for the grade at Pipestone Pass; also 7 for the grade at St. Paul Pass, and 8 for the grade departing Beverly for the Saddle Mountains. Granted, the train would need minimal power (3 units) to ascend Snoqualmie Pass, but at least 4 would likely be required for sufficient dynamic braking descending the pass. Any scenario is cumbersome and expensive. Would the Milwaukee have chosen to simply run 8 locomotives all the way from Harlowton to Seattle or Tacoma (versus 3 or 4 for BN) or would they endure the added expense of stationing helper power and helper crews at Harlowton, Butte, Avery, and Beverly to help each train? The amount of power needed and the added expense of crews and power modifications boggles the mind to the point that it’s easy to see why the “opportunity” for this to have occurred hasn’t come to pass. The only thing more mind-boggling would be considering would be considering the “what if” scenario had the Milwaukee survived separately and had to move such grain trains for places like Longview or Kalama up the 3 percent grade of Tacoma Hill! Unlikely as it would be unfathomable.
It’s true that many railroads move such heavy trains over steep grades today. The difference in the case of the Milwaukee route is that, unlike those today, the Milwaukee would not have been a palatable alternative. Case in point: today, Montana Rail Link. Much of the traffic moved on this route today is in the form of very heavy unit trains that have to be moved across two mountain passes in Montana with grades similar to those encountered on the Milwaukee (actually a bit worse for the westward trip). While the use of helpers on these two grades is the limiting factor for the amount of traffic that can be handled, the advantage that the MRL route would have over the Milwaukee route (as a comparison) would be that once the train has crested Mullan Pass (the last hill), the grade to destination for these trains never exceeds 1 percent. This is because MRL enjoys a water-level route through the remainder of Western Montana and when the train regains BNSF rails, a similar trip around the Cascades (along the Columbia River), not over them. The Rio Grande used to boast that their route was the one “Through the Rockies, not around them,” but today UP runs only the freight traffic that has to go that way through, and everything else around. The Milwaukee (unlike MRL/BN(BNSF) after conquering the grades of Southcentral Montana would have two more steep grades, 1.7 percent St. Paul Pass and the 2.2 percent climb of the Saddle Mountains – and no alternate route.
Yes, it was proposed that the Milwaukee be folded into BN in the early 1970s. Even had the Milwaukee infrastructure been in better shape making the marriage more palatable, it’s difficult to see where the railroad map would look much different than it does today anyway. One would hope that Milwaukee’s route over Snoqualmie – the route west of Terry’s one redeeming feature – would have been saved, but there would be little reason to save anything else. The line through Roundup and Harlowton had no online business compared to the route through Billings and its junctions with routes going south, and while Mullan is steeper than Pipestone going west, it is flatter going east. West of Continental Divide, as stated earlier, there’s little reason that the torturous climbs up St. Paul Pass and away from the Columbia River at Beverly would have been preserved in favor of much gentler routes on BN.
As for claim of some entities would renovate the Milwaukee electrification, including “closing the gap” between Avery and Othello, and provide enough electric locomotives for 4.5 trains per day, which would have resulted in savings that would have paid for the entire “upgrade”: Again, one wonders why something so obviously beneficial wasn’t done. The reason is because it isn’t. Of course the whole concept is dubious when one considers that the Milwaukee never had the financial wherewithal to install longer sidings, put in block signals between Plummer and Marengo, install CTC anywhere, or add wayside detectors, all of which were commonplace on most other railroads in the 1970s. But that aside, the real inefficiency of an electric operation is when the whole railroad isn’t and other railroads are not. While there are savings in operating an electric railway from Harlowton to Tacoma, there is tremendous cost when you are moving a grain train from Great Falls to Portland and the power needs to be changed from diesel to electric at Harlowton, and then back to diesel at Tacoma, as an example. The major cost would be simply the locomotive dwell or train delay by needing to change all the power at Harlowton. Indeed, diesel locomotive power could run through on electrified territory, but we have already established that the Milwaukee is much more expensive when compared to the competing routes in this regard. But to best capture the benefits of electric power, an all-electric operation would be preferable, but this heightens the cost of dwell and delay. Case in point: The Milwaukee has a derailment at Beverly, Washington and the railroad is closed for 24 hours. Eastward trains sit for a day, and arrive a day late at Harlowton. Also at Harlowton would be a day’s worth of westbound trains waiting for power off the delayed eastbound trains, and so it would continue as this would make the westbound trains late, etc. In today’s world where trains operate literally from coast to coast, having a very sizable fleet of locomotives that are restricted to only about 850 miles of main line would be a costly utilization of assets, completely unable to respond to fluctuations in locomotive demand elsewhere on the railroad. They also cannot be used to handle Milwaukee trains on a detour route during a service interruption or be used to payback horsepower hours if need be because other railroads wouldn’t use them. The only way that savings could be realized for an electrified operation would be that most other routes – including other railroads – would be similarly operated. But then, if the BN and UP were electrified also, they would require correspondingly fewer locomotive resources, and be less expensive to operate than the Milwaukee, and we come back full circle to where we are today.
