Smoking Into Logan by Dave Blaze Rail Photography Just a long telephoto frame of this shot from last year's whirlwind Montana adventure. Montana Rail Link's train 844, the Logan Local, is almost home after a day spent working the 5th Sub as far as Sappington and 7th Sub branch to Harrison. They have 8 loads in tow lifted from the little elevator at the end of the branch, and four boxcars picked up at Willow Creek and Three Forks on the back. They are seen here smoking up over the hump at about MP 1.2 on this former Northern Pacific passenger mainline. This line was built in 1888 diverging from the original route at Logan and crossing the Continental Divide via Homestake Pass to Butte and then on to Garrison to rejoing the original 1883 route. While it remains intact for its entirety the stretch over the top of the Continental Divide (6329 ft) between the quarry at Spire Rock to Butte has been out of service for nearly four decades. The bare scarred hill to the right of the train just past that ramshackle structure once carried the Milwaukee Road's Gallatin Valley Branch up and over the NP here on its way from Three Forks to Bozeman and ultimately as far as Menard. Built in 1910 it was once the route od luxury passenger trains to the Milwaukee's Gallatin Gateway Inn in Saylesville that opened in 1927. Alas that inn and transfer point for Yellowstone was built too late at the dawn of the automobile age and never lived up to the road's expectations and was sold in 1951. The rest of the branch soldiered on freight only until succumbing to abandonment in 1978 only two years before the Milwaukee pulled out of Montana and the far west in its entirety. To see a Milwaukee train crossing at this very spot check out this agonizingly cool photo by Larry Zeutschel flic.kr/p/2jv9BEM The two classic EMD GP35s, MRL 403 and 401 (blt. Dec 1964 as DRGW 3039 and Jan. 1964 as DTI 353 respectively) have no other industry work on the return trip and will only pause briefly a couple times to pick up cars they'd worked on the way out. Countless articles have been written about the MRL over the past 35 years of its existence and if you care to learn more download this great series courtesy of Trains Magazine: www.trains.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/TRN-MRL.pdf Unincorporated Logan Gallatin County, Montana Tuesday September 6, 2022 https://flic.kr/p/2opXQQH
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