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Re: Would container traffic have saved the Milwaukee Road?
Author: Mark Meyer
Date: 04-11-2013 - 21:47
Rob,
Shelby, Montana actually has closer alternate rail service than does Alliance, NE as farmers can drive their product to a CP-served elevator in Sweet Grass, Montana. I don't doubt that freight rates could be higher to the west coast from Shelby than Alliance, NE, but this has nothing to do with whether the Milwaukee was around or not or would be now.
It sounds as if you're suggesting that freight rates would be less in Montana if the Milwaukee route was still around. Normally, this would be true, as is the case in North Dakota today, but in Montana, there is no reason to believe this would be the case. The Milwaukee didn't go to Shelby, but if it still operated into Great Falls might farmers be tempted to truck their grain and ship out on the Milwaukee? Of course not, because in addition to the cost of transporting the grain to someplace like Great Falls, they wouldn't get a better price because the Milwaukee-served elevator (assuming this would be economically justifiable, which it isn't) wouldn't be able to offer anything like a competitive rate. To ship a car of wheat from Great Falls to Portland, for example (and most grain from Montana is destined to Portland, Vancouver, Kalama, or Longview, not to Seattle or Tacoma), the Milwaukee route would not only be 350 miles further, but would feature a stiffer grade between Great Falls and Lewistown than the BN has all the way to destination. Couple this with using twice the locomotive power and a car cycle time that would be double that of BN, and it is obvious that the Milwaukee, in today's market, could not be a player for west-coast grain in Montana's Golden Triangle (Havre-Great Falls-Cut Bank), which produces most of Montana's grain.
Nine of Montana's 18 shuttle grain elevators are located in the Golden Triangle area; of the remaining 9, 4 are on the Hi-Line east of Havre, yet another place that the Milwaukee could not ever service. Two of the elevators are in the Billings area where it is possible the Milwaukee could access but not viable even given Milwaukee's trackage/haulage rights; one other shuttle elevator is in Glendive which tends to draw farmers from west and east rather than south toward the Milwaukee line. This leaves 2 facilities, Moccasin (Grove) and Moore in the Lewistown area that would have been accessed by the Milwaukee without a huge mileage disadvantage, but still with a huge locomotive requirement disadvantage. Most non-shuttle grain in Montana is loaded in the Golden Triangle, or in the Glasgow, Wolf Point, Sidney, and Plentywood areas, again far from where the Milwaukee could make an impact even if it was still around and if it had competitive profile, neither of which is the case. In other words, much of Montana would still be a "monopoly" with or without the Milwaukee, and it is a testimony to that so much of its main line west of Miles City could be abandoned in one fell swoop and directly affect so few existing customers in Montana. It's also interesting that the "monopoly" of railroading in Montana without the Milwaukee is still touted as concern, when you never hear about it in places like Southern Idaho, most of Florida, much of New Mexico, Tucson, San Diego, or Las Vegas - all areas with populations equal to or much greater than Montana, but with only one freight railroad, and in several instances, places that have always only had one freight railroad.
Yes, it might have been nice to keep the Milwaukee electrification as a laboratory to test and develop, but much like the very existence of the Milwaukee, who would have paid for it? Yes, I know many think the management was dedicated to the railroad's demise, but it's still perplexing that no outside entity thought the railroad or a concept such as electrification was worth saving. Or it could just have been that it wasn't. As for favorable operating costs with electrification, I would bet that the real cost of power modifications at places like Othello and Avery (to diesel and back to electric or a combination) was really not adequately measured, but it's difficult to do even today. One has to remember that, for instance, the Milwaukee had only 12 Little Joes, so it was far from ever being an all-electric operation once diesels came into the scene. The perception of worthiness was that electrics then were added to diesel power that ran through, with the electrics acting as supplemental power over the many steep grades along the Milwaukee. But that doesn't mean there wasn't a cost associated with adding and removing them from a train, or a cost to their waiting for the next assignment or train delay waiting for locomotives.
You stated, "I do not buy the assertion that other railroads need to be electrified to justify one railroad being electrified. That the Milwaukee ran for decades with impressively low operating costs while the neighboring roads were not electrified is rather obvious evidence to the contrary." You can buy it or not, but you're incorrect. Example: Say for the sake of argument, instead of hauling grain trains for Kalama and Longview over the Saddle Mountains and Tacoma Hill, the Milwaukee interchanged them to UP at Marengo to take advantage of a water-level crossing of the Cascades. This would force a power relay at Marengo (assuming the "Gap" was electrified) removing MILW electric power and replacing with UP diesel power. Very costly with regard to repositioning power and locomotive dwell. The very thought of actually relaying EVERY locomotive consist at Harlowton is mind boggling. And keeping that many assets (electric power) captive on 850 miles of railroad would certainly cost more operational headaches and expense than the savings of electric vs. diesel. In an age when BNSF runs locomotives through on trains from Minnesota to Mexico, Washington to Ohio, Wyoming to Georgia, and North Dakota to Florida, limiting that many assets to that few miles of track is difficult to comprehend.
It is true that Rio Grande, with its route vastly inferior to UP, was profitable. But, unlike the Milwaukee which was able to be almost completely abandoned from Miles City to Easton all at once due to the lack of online business, Rio Grande had strong intermediate traffic sources, including a lot of coal. But Tennessee Pass is mothballed (and that was done even before SP-D&RGW was bought by UP) due to its lack of traffic and grade (sound familiar?). Without BNSF trackage rights trains, with the added bonus of keeping Amtrak off the UP route across Wyoming, indeed the Rio Grande main might be truncated in eastern Utah. But unlike the Milwaukee, it has other reasons it survives today.
The Milwaukee could have indeed had a positive cash flow on the western extension nearly up the end. Given that it took more crews and power to operate any Milwaukee train compared to a competing UP or BN train, and that car and locomotive cycle time were probably double or more of those roads, and that derailment costs and cost of other deferred maintenance were on the increase, it's difficult to see how. But all those things certainly meant it was in no position to move into a new era of railroading as the BN and UP lines were.
As for the a reason to have kept the Milwaukee around being "It is risky to have a small number of routes," this is another example, like keeping electrification: In a perfect world, it would be nice, but who would pay to maintain a line that wouldn't be worth operating except when one of the others is out of service? In a perfect world we would have a national transportation policy that would take such things into consideration because in the whole scope of things, any Milwaukee route would be far down the list after alternatives to routes such as Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, Cajon Pass, and Tehachapi Pass. But the government doesn't foot the bill for such things, so routes survive - or don't - on merit.
Shelby, Montana actually has closer alternate rail service than does Alliance, NE as farmers can drive their product to a CP-served elevator in Sweet Grass, Montana. I don't doubt that freight rates could be higher to the west coast from Shelby than Alliance, NE, but this has nothing to do with whether the Milwaukee was around or not or would be now.
It sounds as if you're suggesting that freight rates would be less in Montana if the Milwaukee route was still around. Normally, this would be true, as is the case in North Dakota today, but in Montana, there is no reason to believe this would be the case. The Milwaukee didn't go to Shelby, but if it still operated into Great Falls might farmers be tempted to truck their grain and ship out on the Milwaukee? Of course not, because in addition to the cost of transporting the grain to someplace like Great Falls, they wouldn't get a better price because the Milwaukee-served elevator (assuming this would be economically justifiable, which it isn't) wouldn't be able to offer anything like a competitive rate. To ship a car of wheat from Great Falls to Portland, for example (and most grain from Montana is destined to Portland, Vancouver, Kalama, or Longview, not to Seattle or Tacoma), the Milwaukee route would not only be 350 miles further, but would feature a stiffer grade between Great Falls and Lewistown than the BN has all the way to destination. Couple this with using twice the locomotive power and a car cycle time that would be double that of BN, and it is obvious that the Milwaukee, in today's market, could not be a player for west-coast grain in Montana's Golden Triangle (Havre-Great Falls-Cut Bank), which produces most of Montana's grain.
Nine of Montana's 18 shuttle grain elevators are located in the Golden Triangle area; of the remaining 9, 4 are on the Hi-Line east of Havre, yet another place that the Milwaukee could not ever service. Two of the elevators are in the Billings area where it is possible the Milwaukee could access but not viable even given Milwaukee's trackage/haulage rights; one other shuttle elevator is in Glendive which tends to draw farmers from west and east rather than south toward the Milwaukee line. This leaves 2 facilities, Moccasin (Grove) and Moore in the Lewistown area that would have been accessed by the Milwaukee without a huge mileage disadvantage, but still with a huge locomotive requirement disadvantage. Most non-shuttle grain in Montana is loaded in the Golden Triangle, or in the Glasgow, Wolf Point, Sidney, and Plentywood areas, again far from where the Milwaukee could make an impact even if it was still around and if it had competitive profile, neither of which is the case. In other words, much of Montana would still be a "monopoly" with or without the Milwaukee, and it is a testimony to that so much of its main line west of Miles City could be abandoned in one fell swoop and directly affect so few existing customers in Montana. It's also interesting that the "monopoly" of railroading in Montana without the Milwaukee is still touted as concern, when you never hear about it in places like Southern Idaho, most of Florida, much of New Mexico, Tucson, San Diego, or Las Vegas - all areas with populations equal to or much greater than Montana, but with only one freight railroad, and in several instances, places that have always only had one freight railroad.
Yes, it might have been nice to keep the Milwaukee electrification as a laboratory to test and develop, but much like the very existence of the Milwaukee, who would have paid for it? Yes, I know many think the management was dedicated to the railroad's demise, but it's still perplexing that no outside entity thought the railroad or a concept such as electrification was worth saving. Or it could just have been that it wasn't. As for favorable operating costs with electrification, I would bet that the real cost of power modifications at places like Othello and Avery (to diesel and back to electric or a combination) was really not adequately measured, but it's difficult to do even today. One has to remember that, for instance, the Milwaukee had only 12 Little Joes, so it was far from ever being an all-electric operation once diesels came into the scene. The perception of worthiness was that electrics then were added to diesel power that ran through, with the electrics acting as supplemental power over the many steep grades along the Milwaukee. But that doesn't mean there wasn't a cost associated with adding and removing them from a train, or a cost to their waiting for the next assignment or train delay waiting for locomotives.
You stated, "I do not buy the assertion that other railroads need to be electrified to justify one railroad being electrified. That the Milwaukee ran for decades with impressively low operating costs while the neighboring roads were not electrified is rather obvious evidence to the contrary." You can buy it or not, but you're incorrect. Example: Say for the sake of argument, instead of hauling grain trains for Kalama and Longview over the Saddle Mountains and Tacoma Hill, the Milwaukee interchanged them to UP at Marengo to take advantage of a water-level crossing of the Cascades. This would force a power relay at Marengo (assuming the "Gap" was electrified) removing MILW electric power and replacing with UP diesel power. Very costly with regard to repositioning power and locomotive dwell. The very thought of actually relaying EVERY locomotive consist at Harlowton is mind boggling. And keeping that many assets (electric power) captive on 850 miles of railroad would certainly cost more operational headaches and expense than the savings of electric vs. diesel. In an age when BNSF runs locomotives through on trains from Minnesota to Mexico, Washington to Ohio, Wyoming to Georgia, and North Dakota to Florida, limiting that many assets to that few miles of track is difficult to comprehend.
It is true that Rio Grande, with its route vastly inferior to UP, was profitable. But, unlike the Milwaukee which was able to be almost completely abandoned from Miles City to Easton all at once due to the lack of online business, Rio Grande had strong intermediate traffic sources, including a lot of coal. But Tennessee Pass is mothballed (and that was done even before SP-D&RGW was bought by UP) due to its lack of traffic and grade (sound familiar?). Without BNSF trackage rights trains, with the added bonus of keeping Amtrak off the UP route across Wyoming, indeed the Rio Grande main might be truncated in eastern Utah. But unlike the Milwaukee, it has other reasons it survives today.
The Milwaukee could have indeed had a positive cash flow on the western extension nearly up the end. Given that it took more crews and power to operate any Milwaukee train compared to a competing UP or BN train, and that car and locomotive cycle time were probably double or more of those roads, and that derailment costs and cost of other deferred maintenance were on the increase, it's difficult to see how. But all those things certainly meant it was in no position to move into a new era of railroading as the BN and UP lines were.
As for the a reason to have kept the Milwaukee around being "It is risky to have a small number of routes," this is another example, like keeping electrification: In a perfect world, it would be nice, but who would pay to maintain a line that wouldn't be worth operating except when one of the others is out of service? In a perfect world we would have a national transportation policy that would take such things into consideration because in the whole scope of things, any Milwaukee route would be far down the list after alternatives to routes such as Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, Cajon Pass, and Tehachapi Pass. But the government doesn't foot the bill for such things, so routes survive - or don't - on merit.
