Just curious about my fellow Trainboard users. What aspect(s) of the Milwaukee Road is of the most interest to you? Do you collect railroadiana from the CMSt.P&P and or predecessors? Do any model railroading of the system? Or explore any or all areas of it's history? Would it be interesting if I were to conduct a poll? Also, somewhat earlier in posts, I notice that BrianS asked about MRHA. I have been a member for 23 years. Anyone? BoxcabE50
I have lived on the extreme ends of the Milw and the BN. Chicago and Bellingham WA. I love exploring the old line in B-ham of the CMstP&P my neighbor says she remembers hearing the train whistle for the crossing on Smith Road here NE of town by 15 miles.
Here is a very poor photo of the only Milwaukee locomotive I have seen. Taken from a "train" that runs along the roads in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, in 1985. It was very bumpy, hence the poor photo, which was taken from a slide.
BN9900- Have you ever met Al Currier? He's in the B'Ham phone book. He wrote the CTC Board article on the Milw in your area. If you don't have a copy, get the March, 1999 issue. It's a very good overview of that history. BoxcabE50
Hey Alan- Quite sadly, there is now an entire generation that never saw or even photographed just the one as you did. Treasure that memory! BoxcabE50
My interest in the MILW comes from a Soo Line angle... I found The Soo Line in Ladysmith WI while visiting my grandparents. I was always interested in it and I knew that the Soo was what I wanted to model - the only problem was what location? I was interested in Ladysmith and interested in the early 90's - but by then Ladysmith was WC, and I am not interested in "what if?" modeling (not that there is anything wrong with that.) I since found out about Tunnel City, WI - I started researching the CP/Soo Tomah Sub (was the MILW La Crosse Division) and the more I learn about that line, the more interesting it has became (interchanges with WC and CNW trackage rights - plus BN coal trains) and have decided that it is the perfect place for me. An added bonus is The Wisconsin Dells - both great scenery to model and someplace I remember from my childhood - even if I don't remember the MILW in any way other than as part of Soo. I am a member of the Soo Line Historical and Technical Society but not the MILW one (been thinking about it) - do you know of a good source of info on the line from Portage to La Crosse?
If you've not done so already, try contacting MRHA, and see what they can tell you. I am rather fixated on the western operations, so have not paid the proper attention. I do believe that a few years ago there was a convention at Portage. If so, they usually do a lot of articles on the site in issue beforehand. If they did, I have it. But much of my stuff is in storage, far away. http://www.mrha.com/ Or you could try the people that publish the magazine (The Milwaukee Railroader) and see what they can tell you. andoverjct@aol.com You might not get a response right away from either source. But those should be good starting points. If I think of another potential contact, I'll pass it along. BoxcabE50
My interest is not in the Milwaukee Road per se, but in it's interchange operations. My railroad, the Santiam Pacific, runs from the Oregon coast through Central Oregon and Lewiston, ID to Missoula, MT to a connection with the MILW. I decided that MILW would make a much better interchange partner than NP or UP in southern Idaho. I've been able to garner a bit of information from the occasional magazine article, but mostly from The Milwaukee Road by Frederick Hyde. Excellent book! Pat
AKrrnut- You have me curious. Imagineering were a RR might have run is a fun topic. The Milw had several routes they studied or surveyed, but never built. And a few more that they actually acquired land and did grading. So how did you get from Lewiston to MSLA? Lolo Pass? The book by Fred Hyde, and the Richard Steinheimer "The Electric Way Across The Mountains" are by far the most sought after books on the Milw. I see both at times going for wild prices on eBay. One of these days, my wife and I will probably be in the area where you reside. She has family all over that part of your state. BoxcabE50
Boxcab, that article is the one my uncle and I used to recreated all the shots, from the area. We would pretty much find the place and then go back during the time of day that it was taken (maybe not the time of year but the time of day..we have recreated....The Squaligum Gultch, Mission Road and Lynden shots.
BN9900- Keep an eye open when you're out there. Even though the Milw is long gone, Al still railfans. You may bump into him out there. He likes to stop by the area of the old GN depot, and see what is happening. He has a lot more Milw slides from your area that some day may be published in another article. BoxcabE50
nope never have seen him around, not that I would recognize him if I did .... I was lucky enough to have an Uncle who took me railfanning every weekend and besides the Burlington we aldo did what we dubbed the "Bensenville Run". I used to live in La Grange and we would start there by checking the BN (somtimes running over to Clyde yard)then going up to the CNW Proviso yard, then finally reaching the Milwaukee Road Yard in Bensinville. Now I was 4 years old in 85 when SOO took over the Milw, however, there were still Milwaukee units running around, as the years passed they were patched, but still orange and black. These lasted there until CP days in to 95.....Now fast forward to 98-99. I finally had access to a car and I myself or my friend and I went up there and boy things changed. The IRL took over the east portion of the yard, and the old engine house on Green Street I think was in the process of being shut down. The last time I went up there I saw the yard and went up to Bryn Mawr to have a tail gate picnic like we used to do. I saw a lonly geep with a local freight w/ cabbose, the last train I have seen on there ending with the symbolic Caboose.....Mm what better way to end my Railfanning on the Old Milwaukee. (In Chicago) [ 24 March 2002, 06:17: Message edited by: BN9900 ]
BN9900- Do you have any photos that can be linked or posted of Squalicum Hill that you've modeled? I'd sure love to see how you did it. A train passing under the old GN bridge coming down the hill? Or coming up out of the Gulch? It's been a while since my last view of a Milw train in that area! BoxcabE50
No I think you misunderstood me, We duplicated the pictures as what is there now compared to what was there in the 80s. Like in the Mission road Shot, where the train is heading South to Bellingham, and the red barn is on the right of the train, well now the right-of-way is still there and so is the barn......the drive way is asphalt and not gravel...just one example.
BN9900- Oops! I guess that we'll have to write this off as my having a "senior moment." Although not much over b-day #50... I did a very limited amount of photography after the shutdown. I think the last was in early 1981. When the movie "Continental Divide" was being filmed at Cedar Falls. I still get a big chuckle when I recall watching the Hollyweird types running around trying to make it look like a railroad. I thought it looked like a RR beforehand. Guess the Milw folks didn't know what they were doing. Amongst the stuff that they fancied up, there were a couple of fellows with cans of paint and rollers going around painting the tops of the rails silver. It sure wasn't long before nature took that place back over. East of the county road crossing, by the time five years were past, you couldn't even tell where the right of way had been except for the rails disappearing into the new growth of alder and maple trees. At least some of the memories remain sharply etched into my mind. BoxcabE50
The memories are a great aren't they?? I just realized, you are from Kalispell, I work at Target in Bellingham and I have had about three people (families) come through my line from there, were you here in the last two years and Shopping at Target? I was just curious if you were one of them. If you get back up here I would love to get together with you, and to take you to the places we duplicated the shots. Painting the rails? Now that is bad!! Wow, I have never heard about that...Mmmmm very interesting. Hampton (the wye of Milw) in Whatcom County, they still use one track on the south leg (orginal main to bellingham) for storage, tore up the second one, but on the south side of Hampton road there is still rail buried in the gound covered by blackberry bushes. Well I will write more on that later.
They can be fun. Yet at times also rather poignant. That movie was an interesting experience. The roof of the depot was in need of repairs. Many shingles loose, and some falling off. So they had someone go up and sweep the broken shakes to tidy it up. They painted three sides also. The street side did not show on camera, so it was left alone. They brought in a teletype and mounds of official looking papers to make the "ticket office" look like their vision of "reality." They used a window on the west end under the porte cochere as the ticket window. Why the Hollyweird types always must have a window open to the outside I don't understand. Either for tickets, or for talking to the telegrapher. Which was not how it was. That was always an inside the depot function. They sent people into the adjacent woods, who pulled up some small trees, and planted them around the yard. Before the filming was complete, most were wilting fast. In the closing scene, the train departs (east), and what you can't see is how it is running into the weeds and fast growing underbrush. I wonder if the crew was nervous about going on the ground? The old storehouse was all cleaned up and painted to be the "store" where the wedding scene was done. I do have a copy of the movie. It's worth owning. Even more so for the brief moments shown of a familiar old place. Nope. I haven't been in your store. Might be in the area in the future. Might. It's been three years since I was last in my old home state. BoxcabE50
Ahh ok, so I might have had one of your neighbors then. Sounds like the crew might have been nervious, was there any way, they could have made it safer? Prob not considering holywood doesn't think that way. I've never seen the movie, so I might have to rent it some time. Thanks for the different scenes, that sounds like one very interesting movie.
It was an interesting interlude. Of course I'm a John Belushi fan from the REAL Saturday Night Live days. (1975-1976 area) See if Blockbuster has a copy. They should. You'll enjoy the whole thing, especially last few minutes at Victor, Wyoming. (Formerly known to the Milwaukee Road as Cedar Falls, Washington.) Just remembered another thing. Plainly seen in one slide is a friend's pickup truck parked at the east end of the depot. He got hired on as an extra. One thing they did, was film some of the on train sequences, albeit very brief ones, west of Cedar Falls. One day, he got a cab ride. When he told me the speeds they were traveling, over 50mph, I told him about the slow orders that had been in place. His face got a slightly gray tinge. BoxcabE50
Maybe you shouldn't have told him......If I remember the slow orders were about 20 to 30 at the end of the good ol Milw. That is amazing, I'll have to rent it sometime, but what loco was used for it?
