Bonner/Milltown is just east of Missoula, the NP and MILW both shared the valley along the Clark Fork. The Milwaukee mainline to the Pacific was on the south side of the river, And at Bonner it built a branchlike across the Clark Fork to serve the mill at Bonner, it also was the beginning of the Big Blackfoot Branch that followed the Big Blackfoot river up to Clearwater. The pictures I have taken below are at the center left of this old photo. as you can see the NP and old highway going over the Milwaukee grade. This is Pre Interstate 90 of course. This was logging country, well...you can read the sign below (as seen along the current MRL (former NP) ROW. There is a caboose here painted as the MILW, but as most of us know, it isn't really a MILW caboose. Looking south on the grade towards the Clark Fork, the bridge closest in the going under the MRL (Montana Rail Link), and the bridge(s) just past the railroad is I-90. I followed the grade as far as I could until I reached a locked gate. This is the area where the Milltown Dam once was, it was recently torn down, and the result was a huge environmental cleanup as the silt at the bottom of the reservoir was contaminated with arsenic from a flood that occurred up river in 1908, that washed mine waste down the river. The MRL actually used this grade to bring in empty hoppers to fill with contaminated soil. The above picture is looking back north/northeast towards Milltown, I-90 is directly above. Rails were still present, looking toward Milltown.
A few miles up the grade past Milltown, along Hwy 200, stands a trestle easily seen from the highway. The grade as seen from the park by McNamara.
True. Just thinking back on the days when there were shiny rails. Some days it feels like that never happened, others as though it was only moments ago.
I'm more sad at what could of been, had the management that ran the Milwaukee Road into the ground had the forsight to look a few years beyond the small Northwest freight business and see the global shipping into the container revolution of the 80's, The Road may have survived till this day and would have been very prosperous with a great direct route from the Tacoma/Seattle ports they already served, to Chicago. They already were hauling COFC's before the BN and UP even thought of the concept. A better management team would have had the future long term in the main picture, not just local freight. Just a thought.
Thing is the NW freight business was not exactly small. They had a big chunk of grain and auto. A large amount of Tacoma and Seattle. And were well positioned to grow it.
