Guide to the Milwaukee Road in Montana

When the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad was built across Montana, it was lauded as an engineering marvel. When it went electric in 1914, it was the envy of the world. Spanning Montana's rugged beauty with scientific precision, "The Milwaukee Road" was ahead of its time, cutting its twentieth-century swath through the breadbasket of the Old West, providing Montana's grangers with increased access to distant markets. Once heralding the future, The Milwaukee Road is now part of the past, resigned since 1980 to photographs, corporate takeovers, and fleeting memories. The land remembers, too: from road grades to mountain tunnels, Montana recalls the bold Milwaukee. From east to west across Montana and up and down the branch lines, this guide will take you where the Milwaukee dared to go and won't let you miss the places it stopped: the depots, hotels, and roundhouses, as well as the substations that electrified The Milwaukee Road and that now power the imagination.