A post on the other site claims that BNSF had westbounds parked blocking one side of the double track on the funnel, and that MRL has the same parked all the way to Phosphate and Missoula is out of crews.

It may not be a meltdown (yet), but it appears the route is near capacity and any substantial delay due to derailment, weather, lack of power or crews might be disastrous.

MRL is hiring a class of experienced engineers to start in early December and another in early January. Evidently there is a single crew pool and must be prepared to work out of Billings, Laurel, Livingston, Helena or Missoula. Normally there is little advantage for an experienced person to work for a union railroad. Seniority is seniority, and anyone new will be at the bottom, but it isn't unusual in a situation like this for an experienced hire to actually go backwards in seniority.

BNSF's routes out of the Northwest to the East has several impressive bottlenecks. MRL is a great safety valve but if BNSF can't accept the trains coming off the MRL then it will quickly become just another line that is nothing more than a parking lot. I wonder if there is any chance of using Cascade and Stampede as a direction running arrangement? MRL vs the HiLine might be used for directional running also, but the issue becomes deadheading crews one way and running into Powder River coal traffic east of Billings which probably makes it impracticable. Add to this UP's increased traffic between Eastport and Hinkle that has to thread their way through Spokane. BNSF could also try sending traffic down the old OE/WP route to Keddie, east over the old WP/DRGW to Denver. This is a long detour, and I'm not sure they have trackage rights between Keddie and Weso, but UP might be bribed into a haulage agreement. Regardless, BNSF (and MRL) only have a finite number of assets to get through this winter, regardless of traffic levels. I wonder if Ft. Worth is reassessing next years capital improvements yet?