Great Northern's Marias Pass

[imphantum]

Can someone tell me the differences between BNSF and GN's Marias Pass? (Double tracked in some areas, tunnels, stations, etc.)

[GreatNortherner]

Hi,

There aren't that many differences between "then" and "now". Many of the mainline realignments you see on the route today were done when it was still GN operated, though the BN also did some line adjustments if I'm not mistaken.

Some important differences are:

Signals: well into the 1970s you could even find some semaphore signals on the Marias Pass mainline. Mostly GN's old three light signals though.

Depots: several depots vanished or were moved: Columbia Falls, Kalispell, Summit, Essex, Blackfoot (maybe some more). There also were flagstops at almost every passing siding, but I'm not sure if they ad any shelters or other facilities.

Kalispell once had a pretty standard track layout: through track (part of old Haskell Pass) mainline, passing track, third siding, freight house, some spurs. Beyond Kalispell were two branches: one off the south wye tail to Somers (big tie plant was there), and one along the old mainline to Marion and some logging camps.

In Whitefish the engine facilities had some more spurs, and the yard had a long icing platform for the reefers and an ice house.

Blackfoot used to be a bit larger too, with its own small engine shed and a freight house spur. (Somebody told me that Blackfoot was a crew change point for a while.)

The list can probably be extended, but that's what I can think of right now.

Cheers,
Michael

[thecanadianrail]

would be an interesting and a fairly easy project to backdate this to GN era with just some track changes, some depots and signals...which is all available from your website GreatNortherner aren't they?

[hertsbob]

There are a couple of areas of track that have been removed in recent years and were therefore omitted from the route.

Union Oil Spur at w112.248 n48.6 which consisted of three sidings in an oil refinery. You can just about see one of the tracks in Google Earth.

Main 1 to Main 2 Crossovers at Marias. About 1/2 mile west of where the Summit balloon track joins onto Main 1.

Essex Pit at w113.635 n48.32. Basically two long curving sidings, and again you can see where these were in Google Earth.

[GreatNortherner]

Ha! Wow I hadn't even noticed that those weren't on the route, must have been too busy watching the splendid scenery.

Speaking of changes over the years, if we go further back into the Steam era some locations got renamed:
Essex used to be called Walton, Piegan and Browning are listed as "Fort Piegan" and "Fort Browning" on said timetable, and there is a station called Citadel that looks like it's today's Coram.

There also used to be plenty of flagstops along the route:
One at Half Moon (where the lumber mill still stands)
Two between Columbia Falls and Belton: Citadel, and Grizzly
Three between Belton and Essex: Red Eagle, Hidden Lake, Pinnacle
Three between Essex and Summit: Nimrod (Java East), Singleshot, Blacktail
Two between Summit and Glacier Park: Rising Wolf, Bison
Two between Glacier Park and Browning: Spotted Robe, Triple Divide
Four between Blackfoot and Cut Bank: Meriwether, Fort Piegan, Sundance, Gunsight
And two more between Cut Bank and Shelby: Baltic, Ethridge

[imphantum]

Thanks for all of this info!

[SAR704]

Ha! Wow I hadn't even noticed that those weren't on the route, must have been too busy watching the splendid scenery.

Speaking of changes over the years, if we go further back into the Steam era some locations got renamed:
Essex used to be called Walton, Piegan and Browning are listed as "Fort Piegan" and "Fort Browning" on said timetable, and there is a station called Citadel that looks like it's today's Coram.

There also used to be plenty of flagstops along the route:
One at Half Moon (where the lumber mill still stands)
Two between Columbia Falls and Belton: Citadel, and Grizzly
Three between Belton and Essex: Red Eagle, Hidden Lake, Pinnacle
Three between Essex and Summit: Nimrod (Java East), Singleshot, Blacktail
Two between Summit and Glacier Park: Rising Wolf, Bison
Two between Glacier Park and Browning: Spotted Robe, Triple Divide
Four between Blackfoot and Cut Bank: Meriwether, Fort Piegan, Sundance, Gunsight
And two more between Cut Bank and Shelby: Baltic, Ethridge

I think I remember a lot of these names being referred to in the original MSTS route. Either the original version was going by outdated data, or it was accurate for the time it was being researched, which would've been around 2000 or even earlier. The part of Australia I reside in tended to name new stations after politicians, and Aboriginal terms, so there aren't too many railway stations here that boast a name like Rising Wolf for example. Having researched a lot of the local railway network here, it gives you a frequently misleading perception of whether or not a siding (or even a line) is well known. Therefore it can be a delicate task trying to sell a route to end users based on obscurity.

Anyhow, I think the name Marias Pass is a name that would be considered to be somewhat nostalgic amongst some of us here. Personally, i spent a lot of time playing with the old Kuju version when I first started using MSTS. I wonder how much interest a steam era version would get? Surely some of the places mentioned in GreatNortherner's post must have boasted townships, and even industry at some point, that simply disappeared with time?

[hertsbob]

I'm sure most of them would have been referred to, and now I think about it there's a house track at Bison in the documention I've got which is no longer there. And the yard at Browning where I left a couple of tracks in. I'm repeating myself now, but Kalispell is an excellent place to recreate what would once of been in your mind's eye. I found it really fascinating. I think what we see today is the legacy of James Hill's policy of trying to milk every last penny out of his network and it's fair to say that some of the locations were a little bit speculative in this respect!

The main advantage we have nowadays is the combination of Google Maps/Earth and Bing Maps (and of course good old RWDecal), none of which would have been available to the original MSTS route builder.

It would be excellent to see a steam version, and there's no reason why it wouldn't be possible assuming someone has the time and motivation to do it.

[philmoberg]

... Surely some of the places mentioned in GreatNortherner's post must have boasted townships, and even industry at some point, that simply disappeared with time?

In all likelihood, at least most of those places are still around in some form, to the extent they were built-up at all. The house tracks on most railroads were pulled out (usually along with the freight houses they served) when the railroads ceded the LCL (less-than-carload) service to the truckers. Team tracks tended to be pulled out as single-carload service was also lost to trucks, or else they were retained for MOW movements. Several of these are included on the Sherman Hill route, for example. Grain traffic was consolidated, again by truck, to fewer points as farmers co-ops were formed to build bigger grain elevators. The expansion of what were then known as improved highways also had its effect on these local economies, allowing people to travel much further in a given amount of time, such that local merchants running on small margins suddenly had to compete with merchants at the next point up (or down) the line, and some of these businesses failed (or perhaps were bought-out), as a consequence. At the same time, bus lines siphoned-off most of what local passenger traffic there was because they could offer a much a much cheaper service.

Undoubtedly, at least some of the local economies shrank as a result of all this, and no doubt at least a few of them most their local Post Offices (which is a serious thing for towns that are as rural as most of that area still is). OTOH the industrial base, which was (and still is, AFAIK) agriculture and related businesses continued to thrive. All these farms need their gas stations, bars and cafes (for example), so there are still reasons to do business down at the old crossroads, even if the trains don't stop there anymore.