[ 01-25-2021, 07:27 AM: Message edited by: Moderator ]
Gilbert B Norman Member # 1541
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Here's a Fair Use quotation from the material Montana Jim submitted:
DEER LODGE, Mont. — For nearly a century, passenger trains rumbled three times weekly through this broad, grass-rich mountain valley in central Montana, home to more cattle than people, until Amtrak pulled the plug on the North Coast Hiawatha in 1979.
But with a new president known as “Amtrak Joe” and Democratic control of both houses of Congress, a dozen counties across the sparsely populated state are hoping that a return to passenger train service through the cities of Billings, Bozeman, Helena and Missoula, and whistle stops like Deer Lodge in between, is closer than it has been in four decades.
“Residents of the very rural parts of the state have to travel 175 miles to get on a plane or to seek medical services,” said David Strohmaier, a Missoula County commissioner who is one of those behind the newly formed Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority to raise money and lobby for a return to passenger rail in southern Montana.
Oh it's so much fun to daydream, but should anything ever come to pass from this proposal, it would be an intrastate Montana service running nowhere (Miles City) to nowhere (Sandpoint), but albeit through the "population centers" - if you can call 'em that - Montana has. Amtrak is not about to start another LD route along the NP through Minnesota and North Dakota to connect with this - and the only state I could think of less inclined to fund a passenger train than ND is "Trump worshipping Idaho".
Let us also not lose sight that Joe has a few more pressing things on the plate than to address his ostensible "love of trains". In reality, "Amtrak Joe" is "Corridor Joe".
Gilbert B Norman Member # 1541
posted
Lest anyone wonder, allow me to add that on the Olymian picture, the car on the head is a MILW Touralux Sleeper obviously not in revenue service. This was the MILW's effort to introduce Economy Sleeper service long before did other roads such as the NP, and much the same as the two Canadian roads had long offered.
It flopped, and really did not save any costs. The car was trimmed with the beautiful natural woods that was a MILW trademark, and that they did not have carpeting I guess presented some maintenance savings there.
Car was configured with fourteen open Sections. It was railroad maintained and had a railroad employed Porter. Other roads "smarter" than my MILW (with 'em 1970-81) realized they were simly diluting revenue away from Standard Sleepers.
The only Econo Snooze that ever really worked out was the Budd 24-8 Slumbercoach. There you had 40 passengers over which to spread the Porter's salary. The only negative to that car, which received strong public acceptance during both the railroad and Amtrak eras, was the plumbing "nightmare" that Amtrak minimized with both the Superliners and the V-II's.
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