Very nice! Though I'd disagree with you about the Pacific Extension. The ICC later discovered the (as you said terrible) management purposely reported double expenses on the extension so they could more easily petition for abandonment. They managed to turn a Granger road's greatest asset into something to be disposed of. So short sighted....

Well, just like they decided to scrap the electrification only a year before the price of diesel fuel doubled...

And the price of copper scrap halved!

That what happens when you have short-sighted corporate types in control, or a railway or any other enterprise.

Yeah, I didn't mean the extension itself was ruinous- (building and electrifying it did put the company into the red several times, but that's bound to happen with such a huge project) rather that it was because of the way it was managed. In its last years, it was actually quite profitable, (though not well-maintained) and freight traffic picked up enough to have Burlington Northern seriously interested in purchasing it instead of letting it be abandoned. But of course that was all cut short.

awesome

Ah, so you were there also! I guess I didn't see you. *pouts just a bit* Still, plenty of lovely things to see.

I was in the food court area around 4-ish, and I think I might have seen you there, but I wasn't sure if it was you. >_<

Bah, that is when I was there. *pouts some more* Perhaps we could have a meeting that's a bit more planned, hmm? I should be free this weekend, if you'd like.

well lets see

1 any fright train derailments cost where charged off on the passenger trains

2 most of the tracks "lines west" had little or no ballast

3 tie replacement was "lets take out the really bad ties and replace them with not so bad ties taken out of the ground in the midwest"

4 the "GAP" in the wire in eastern washington was the never could finnish deal because the board of directors where putting the proffits in their pockets and not back in the railroad even with the "sweet deal of UP forwarding passenger trains with Milw passenger cars west"

5 the board of directors where hoping to merge with the C&NW but the wound up with the SOO thanks to the NTSB and then had the lines west imbargoed and sold off to other RRs or out right riped out of the ground and sold for scrap!

My grandmother was a car cleaner for the Milw in the late 50's up to the time the west end trains where ended in 61 and i worked MOW in the mid 70's on the Tacoma Division

Gotta wonder if the MILW would still be around if it had merged with C&NW instead. And if it had, would UP still have bought C&NW? Hmmm... Wow, I guess I didn't know you worked for them, that's really cool. You might be interested in some photos and video I have of a couple ex-Milwaukee Road geeps that are still in daily sevice in Chicagoland. They were only patched for SOO; they are still the MILW black and orange!

Nah, the C&NW would have neglected the Milwaukee trackage until they could abandon it just as they had done with many prior competitor acquisitions.

The Milwaukee/BN would have been about as good a fit as SOO would be over a decade later

Haha.. good point. More alternate history.. if the MILW/BN formed and were still around today, I'd bet the SP/SF merger would have gone through after all, and there might be no BNSF. Or not. In any case, UP would have had some serious competition by that point.

I'm amazed this car exists today Need to find one in HO scale
Sometimes I think that since BN was created that was the reason for MLW's demise in 1980 Least SOO runs on part of MLW

any particular brand in HO?

one that is CHEAP & used

lol good luck with that. Walthers has a really nice skytop though finding one used is gonna be tricky

yeah I needs to find UP passenger cars from Tyco's Red Box era

This isso cool!