You’ve done an outstanding job with this video. Great cinematography, narration, music, historical knowledge. Wish there were more videos like these for other railroads.
Wow, what a great video. I went to work for the Milwaukee in 1978 pounding spikes. I never worked on the lines west, but worked with fellow employees that did and lived west of the twin cities. This video sort of reinforces the stories and places they told me about. I ended up working for the Soo, then CP Rail until 2000 when I left as a railroad detective. I have lots of great memories working as a railroader.
This is an incredibly well-done documentary on the remnants of the Milwaukee Road in Washington state. Thanks so much for producing this! I was lucky to witness much of the Milwaukee trackage through Washington state and even Montana on a camping trip I took as a kid with my parents, brother and sister back in 1968 from the Chicago area to the Pacific coast and back. Curiously, I didn't see many Milwaukee Road trains except once at night and in the distance when we turned south for Yellowstone National Park in Montana. Also, I was employed as a locomotive engineer (now retired) at the Soo Line's former Milwaukee Road, Bensenville (IL) yard. I got to operate a lot of former Milwaukee power such as EMD MP15ACs, GP40s, GP38-2s and SD10s over former Milwaukee trackage mainly between Chicago and Davenport, IA.
I grew up in the Town of Cosmopolis, Washington and I remember the Milwaukee Road Train that passed through town 7 days a week saddened by the end of this R 7:30pm
I clicked on this video and almost clicked it off when I saw that it was over an hour long. I then thought, oh I'll give it 5 minutes. I ended up staying for the entire video. Well done Todd. This video was awesome. No way it could be done better.
My Dad, my uncle and a cousin of mine worked for the Milwaukee Railroad in the 60's through the mid 70's out of Janesville Wisconsin. They laid off alot of people and you were very lucky to still have a job with them in the late 70's as my cousin found out. They loved working for the Railroad. It was their life and it was a damn shame what became of it.
I worked as a gandy for Wisconsin River Rail Transit Commission during the 90's, rehabbing old Milwaukee road track, Muscoday to Waukesha. I lived in Janesville at the time. Brutal work much enjoyed tho.
I was fortunate enough to live next to the Milwaukee Road's Chehalis Sub from 1974 to 1983. I was just 2 years old in '74. I was fortunate enough to see the last few years of this great railroad. The Chehalis Sub saw about 4 to 5 trains a day with the Portland, OR trains mixed in with the locals. The Milwaukee left the West in 1980 when I was just 8 yrs old and then in 1981, I got to see the first few years of Weyerhauser's Chehalis Western continue the tradition of hauling logs to Tacoma using the Milwaukee's own shop built log cars they purchased with the deal. Chehalis Western and the log bunks are long gone but the Chehalis Sub and Morton Sub still live on. However, now the Tacoma Hill is in jeopardy as City of Tacoma is pushing to turn it into a trail. Tacoma Rail turned its Frederickson local over to another line that operates the other end of the railroad from Chehalis because the Hill is too costly to operate.
Mr, TH-cam, if you are seeing this, please give Todd Hilton an award for all time best video. I am not a train geek, and still I was enthralled with the scope and beauty of this production. I'll be on the lookout for more Nowhere Video Production vids!
Amazing video!! I find abandoned stuff, especially railroads absolutely astonishing. At the same time it makes me sad watching stuff like this or exploring abandoned railroads myself. To think men broke their backs with pride and died building these structures just to have it all abandoned and destroyed hurts my soul
Wow, what a production! You have done the Milwaukie Road proud with this memorable and surreal video. The emotion that this video produces brings me to tears of sadness and also joy to see such a video detailing these locations. Thank you so much!
I was in college in the later 70's in Ellensburg, Washington. I still recall seeing the orange and black Milwaukee locomotives passing through the CWU campus as well as traversing Snoqualmie Pass next to I-90. Regrettably, I didn't have an interest in trains back then. I had no idea I was watching the end of an era play out. I wish I had taken more pictures but at least I got to see the Milwaukee when it was still in operation. Thanks for the outstanding video.
Bravo such a fantastic, wonderful, just one of a kind Documentry of the Milwaukee road!! i lived in a small town of Glenview illinois right by the tracks on henley st were the trains were non stop in the sixties and 70s what a wonderous time it was , so getting to the point my mother divorced my birth father and later remarried my step dad who work for the milwaukee road until its demise in the middle 80s he would atest to the fact that everything you had in this video was true and correct and if alive today would have loved to watch it !! what a sad ending to such a great railroad but you know when you look at what you have done here you keep it alive Todd i got tears watching some of the stuff in the video it wasnt ment to go away like it did!! it was leader from the state of the art electric operations to the milwaukee shops building there own freight cars , the tunnels ,the bridges the list goes on yep my step dad woulda been proud of you Todd !! thank you you keeping something dear to me alive ! again bravo!
My dad (Jim Irvin) was the agent at Cedar Falls, Wa from 1958 until the last day of operation. We lived at Cedar Falls (railroad house) from 1958 to 1970, mom and dad built a new house about 5 miles away. Dad had 40 years with the Milwaukee Road. I was a operator from 1976 (16 years old really!) until May 1979 got laid off. I worked at Cedar Falls, South Cle Elum, Kittitas and a couple of times at Beverly. Cedar Falls what a great place to grow up! My dad passed in 2016, age 90 and he was a World War 2 veteran, Navy.
Wow! That's something. I grew up south of Tacoma along the Chehalis Sub, near Roy. I got to see about 5 trains a day with the Portland trains and locals. I know that was more traffic than the mainline saw in the last few years.
Todd, that was fantastic. Great photography, excellent historic storytelling, great narration. Well done! I have seen many of the structures growing up here in Washington, but didn't know their origin. Now I do!
What can I say??? Perfect--- very well done, excellent--- and then some. A complete exhibit of what the MILW used to be,and how it got there. Also--- a complete memorial to corporate greed,stupidity and malfeasance to ever let this all die. Out of 5 stars, I give it 20. THANK YOU!!!!
What an amazing video. It is great to see that a fair amount of the MILW infrastructure is still in place. A well done documentary, an enjoyable watch.
Wow!! A very excellent documentary of the Milwaukee Road in the West. Thank you! I grew up along the Milwaukee Road's Chehalis Sub near Roy, WA. We lived there from 1974 to 1983. I got to see the last few years of the Milwaukee. This line sported 1 or 2 daily locals and 3 Portland, OR trains as well as the nightly WAM Logger. I was just 8 years old when the Embargo of Lines West took effect. I had the privilege to ride the rails of the entire Chehalis Sub in 1992 under the ownership of Weyerhauser's Chehalis Western RR shortly before they ceased operations. They hauled logs to Tacoma using the former Milwaukee shop-built log cars from 1981-1992. I was told those cars were built in the early 1970's from the first run of 1940's era Milwaukee Road PS-1 boxcars. Some things to note concerning the line West of Snoqualmie Pass. The poles and centenary arches you said sported telegraph lines actually did not. The canted poles next to the rail bed were actually catenary poles for the electrification. The crossarms sported the 3,000 volt supply lines for the centenary. This is also true of the crossarms remaining on the steel centenary supports on the bridges. The Telegraph lines ran further away from the railroad bed and actually followed the ravines of each of the creekbeds and were never attached to the bridges. I was fortunate enough to see all of this in 1992 after taking that last ride on the Chehalis Western. The telegraph lines, catenary poles and cannibalized signals were all still intact. We accessed the right of way at the Asahel Curtis trail. The location was a fill known as Humpback Creek. (Famous photographer Asahel Curtis snapped a promo shot of a Bipolar Electric locomotive heading the Hiawatha passenger train on that fill prior to 1920.) They were just starting to clear the right of way for the trail you see today. Burlington Northern actually had purchased the line from Maple Valley all the way to Easton in 1980 with intentions to run trains over Snoqualmie in favor of its easier grades than that of Stampede Pass. After the Hull Creek bridge collapse and unrealized traffic, BN removed the track from Easton to Renton after selling the Milwaukee right of way to Washington State in 1988. My guess is the signals you saw piled up in that one area may have been done by the crews we saw in 1992 because the signals were still intact when we hiked between Humpback and Hansen Creek. I'm guessing the snowshed that still stands is at Humpback Creek. It definitely once was much longer. The reason it looks rebuilt is because according to Frederick Hyde's 1990 Milwaukee Road publication in color, a section if the Humpback Creek snowshed was rebuilt in 1979 or 1980 after a derailment damaged a section of the shed.
One of the greatest RR documentaries I have ever viewed. I cannot imagine the logistics you've done to bring this tour de force to life; the time, the scouting of locations, the camera angles and the money spent........ just astounding. So grateful that your vision of this great, abandoned railroad, can now be presented to all of us. Thank you.
This is probably one of the best, PBS quality documentaries that I have seen in a very long time. I am a fan of railroads and have been fascinated by abandoned railroads for a very long time. The Milwaukee Road also ran through my home town of Beecher, IL. It ran parallel a mile east from the shared Chicago & Eastern Illinois/Missouri Pacific railroads (Now CSX and Union Pacific). Abandoned two years before I was born, I have childhood memories of the painted railroad crossing symbol still at the abandoned grade crossing on Indiana Ave a decade later before the road was repaved in the early 90’s. Eagle Lake Road to the north of Beecher had a notoriously steep grade crossing for motorists and after the tracks were gone, my dad used to jump the crossing with his 1972 Olds Cutlass all the time when I was a toddler. It was leveled out somewhere in the mid 90’s. Thank you for this enjoyable documentary. Very well done.
This is amazing. As a lifelong Milwaukeean who saw the railroad completely disappear from it's home city since the 1980's, the story you've told, the video and the music stir emotions. Sad to see what has been lost of the greatness that once was, but grateful to you and others who care to preserve what remains in beautiful Washington State. Your video is an absolute treasure. God bless you and your family.
This fantastic documentary is better than 98% of movies shown in theaters. I felt this overwhelming sense of sadness over how time erases humans and human built endeavors. Think of the men and woman who worked this amazing stretch of railroad for three-quarters of a century. They are now mostly gone. The brilliant engineers who designed those tunnels and bridges, works of art, are all gone. The film narrator had the perfect voice. I was left wishing that somehow this remarkable train line could have been saved.
Definitely true. The irony is the Milwaukee pushed thru the 1960's to merge with the more willing Chicago & Northwestern but the ICC dragged its feet on many needed mergers, not realizing that highway traffic was the stiff competition and keeping the big roads separate was no longer necessary. Unfortunately, by the late1970's, the infrastructure was in terribly bad shape and would've taken more money than the tightly regulated railroads were willing to put out to revive it. In fact, after the 1977 bankruptcy and Embargo of Lines West, the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad sent a young employee named Bill Edgar out west for quite some time to do an in-depth study of the Milwaukee's Pacific Extension to determine if the line was worth purchasing from the Milwaukee. After long deliberation, it was determined it would cost too much for the C&NW to purchase and rehabilitate the infrastructure and give the land locked C&NW it's own outlet to the West. Bill Edgar is an avid photographer and took many images of the Milwaukee operations in the Northwest in 1978 and '79. Another former employee that used to work between Portage, WI and Milwaukee said that in 1980, a Japanese company that did alot of shipping with the Milwaukee Road actually wanted to purchase the whole railroad and run it their self. They had plans to electrify too. A judge blocked the purchase. My guess is the stiff trade competition with Japan at the time and the thought of a foreign company having a large stake in US territory swayed that decision. So trying to revive it was deeply considered, but just like the Rock Island RR that fell at the same time, the "vultures" swooped in on the corpse and swept up those portions that they deemed viable for operation. It truly is sad because this railroad was the shortest and most direct route to Chicago from Tacoma and would've been great to see still alive.
Because A: everything that was worth being served, was already being served by other railroads, and B: the line was in very poor shape, which is part of what led to the downfall of the Milwaukee, it would have cost too much to rebuild it to be a reliable railroad line again.
I grew up in Milwaukee, and my dad worked in railroads (for the US Army) There’s next to nothing about this railroad in town so I always want to learn more about it. Thank you for this video!
This route is on my bucket list. I followed a portion of the Milwaukee Road down the Musselshell River in Montana by bicycle about six years ago on my way from Portland OR to Bismarck ND. I couldn't ride much of it but followed its course through Harlowton, Roundup, Ingomar and Miles City. The Milwaukee Road used to haul a water tender up from Miles City to Ingomar so the town could have water for its residents and industry. (sheep shearing) This is a wonderful production with drone shots and overlays. Thank You for this treat.
Wonderful homage to the CMStP&P, it must have been a fantastic ride. The Pacific Coast Extention served the U.S. well. Thank you, Todd, for enlightening people's to the historical heritage of The Milwaukee Road.
What a beautiful documentary Mr Hilton. You should be very proud of your self as an amateur videographer, I can only imagine the time you put into this, the filming and editing not the least to say the gathering of the copyrights and selecting the most incredible music - which is worth it all by itself to listen too. The Title drew me in as I have In-Laws living in Milwaukee and I have never heard of this RR before now. They are excited as they have plans to put up a new Chicago, Milwaukee to Minneapolis route in the near future. In retirement I picked up Microsoft Flight Simulator and love to recreate famous routes, such as the first Automobile trip across America in 1904, The Oregon Trail, Amelia Earhart's etc. I believe you have inspired me to check out the rest of this route and create a Flight plan out of it to take the journey from above - so to say. Bless you for the work you did on this as it truly is a work of art.
Been editing/ Video taping since 8th grade and am 48 ,worked for a public tv station many years ago . I strive to be professional. Thank you I have another documentary I did on the Shanghai tunnels you might enjoy.
This is the video I've been waiting for. Magnificent work. I get bothered every time the Pacific extension is called a "costly mistake." You can look at it that way if you choose. For others, the history and legacy of Mil-West is a treasure. Thank you Todd Hilton and family. I'm sorry to say Smokey's in So. Cle Elum lost its least, at least at the depot location.
Absolutely brilliant documentary about the Milwaukee Road rail line, excellent photography and historical research. I’ve had a fascination with the Milwaukee Road for many years, especially when riding the Cedar River Trail. An outstanding tribute to the Old Milwaukee Road and its legacy.
when I first saw that the video was over an hour long, I figured I would just watch the first few minutes. Then I ended up watching the whole thing in one sitting. You absolutely knocked it out of the park with the imagery, the history, and the stories. I am looking forward to future videos on the Milwaukee!
Im just over 20 minutes into the video but i can already see that a lot of research was done and the bar of quality was set very high! The pacing, music choice and voiceover is also solid. And i won't even touch on the cinematography because it's too great to describe! These are the kind of videos that deseve millions of wiews! Thank you for keeping my AuDHD ass entertained with this quality video for that long! May you have a great day and i wish the alorythm pushes this video to the right audience.😊❤
If there was any railroad related documentary I would want to be seen done it would be this, "What Became of the Milwaukee Road Mainline in Washington State?" Well you did it, and superbly done I might add. Your narration, the stills and drone work, showing aspects of the right of way in the "then and now" and the production work is top notch. And the fact you said it was a chance visit to Lind in 2017 that sparked your interest is to be considered fairly recent so that's very impressive that you were able to do all the work in just a few year's time. I also liked how you incorporated your children's enthusiasm to be out with you in that it reflected my own enthusiasm at that age of watching the Milwaukee run here in Washington. Thank you so much for your time and efforts too do this documentary, I have shared it with others and it is greatly appreciated.
As someone who volunteers at one of the few surviving Great Northern roundhouses it's always sad to see the Mighty Milwaukee Road in its current state. On benhill road in St Paul Minnesota a small bridge stands. Owned by the Canadian Pacific track speed is 35mph but when the Milwaukee Road owned the line it heralded the Atlantic Hiawatha's into Minneapolis Minnesota and the track speed was 110mph
Thank you so much for your superb Documentary! I enjoyed your detailed and unhurried treatment of a fascinating subject. Your splendid use of drone photography adds a wonderful touch. I found myself moved at times by your eloquent narration.
Kudos on your film. You’ve managed to tell a great story with respect to the past and also without closing the door on the future potential. The Milwaukee road story isnt one of loss of a railroad but one of change, discovery and adventure. Thank you for making this my day is better because of you.
WOW! What an incredible documentary, well done. I enjoyed every minute of it. I love the way the narration and cinematography really capture the history and current beauty of this remarkable trail. I plan to ride it again this fall, and will feel more knowledgeable when I do. Thank you so much for all the work that went into this!
Tkanks for this wonderful labor of love with great commentary and drone work. Oh how I wish I could have ridden the “Olimpian Hiawatha” on this amazing railroad!”.
Well done. You've given me new appreciation for what the Milwaukee Road accomplished. Now I have four words for everyone that owns the right of way. Bring. Back. The. Milwaukee.
Once I started watching this, I couldn’t stop. This by far is the best presentation on the Milwaukee Road that I have seen. Thank You so much for doing this and for sharing this with us.
This is great! I'm a historian and I really appreciate the research that went into this. I rode the trail in 2022 and you make me want to do it all over again.
thank you for the video on the Milwaukee road railway in Washington state you have done a great job the narration and before and after shots are excellent with the music all fits together just right its a shame that the state of Washington state did not buy it and run tourist trains would have kept the railway alive well into the future this video is far better then the rest of the history videos out there i hope you will keep making more of them thank you so very much Bruce
I'm kind of speechless, Todd. That was a beautiful homage to one of my favorite railroads, albeit one I only experienced in the Chicago/Milwaukee region. Thanks for the wonderful tour of the Pacific Extension in Washington.
Very nice piece of work! I was Coast Division, 1971 to 1980. Hired out on the UP in 1980 and retired in 2013 on a RCO job in Fife yard. I was one of the lucky ones. Many families suffered financial catastrophe when the Milwaukee folded. Now I ride my Lectric 3.0 Ebike where GE boxcabs once roamed. Very surreal experience for me.
I grew up next to the Chehalis Sub near Roy from 1974 to 1983. I was 8 years old when the Milwaukee left in 1980 and missed it so much. Got to see a couple of years of Weyerhauser's Chehalis Western before moving to Estern Washington. My dad's cousin worked for Weyerhauser and he arranged some visits to the CWWR. I got to ride the Chehalis Western in spring 1991 and again 1992 and got to see the whole operation from Tacoma to Curtis and Vail. It's possible we could've passed each other at Fife on our ride into Tacoma in '92. The CWWR shut down about a month later in '92. One of the many reasons for the shut down was the engineer to Tacoma was their only officially certified employee that had clearance to pull the train into UP's CTC controlled Fife Yard and then back the train into Port of Tacoma, and he was retiring soon. I have such fond memories of the Chehalis Sub and glad it still exists, although the Hill is in jeopardy of becoming a trail as Tacoma Rail has deemed it too expensive to run.
I'm not much of a railfan at all, but being a Route 66 fan (who has driven the entire route from Chicago to Santa Monica), I am totally fascinated by historical routes like this, and videos presented as well as this. Much respect to the creators of this video and to the Milwaukee Road!
A wonderful documentary. Thank you for your tremendous effort in searching out all those remote locations. Especially sad for me to see it all abandoned, because at my age (73) I well remember when the CMSP&P Pacific Coast Extension was still a going concern and being documented in railroad periodicals like Trains Magazine. Glad to see many of the structures have survived.
Last summer, I rode my bike across the Palouse to Cascades Trail from Cedar Falls to Tekoa. I became fascinated by the history and couldn't wait to see your documentary. My wife and I just finished watching it and we both thought it was outstanding! Thank you and your family for all the time you put into this! Your drone footage was amazing and the historical photos and information you shared brought the Milwaukee Road back to life. Thanks again!
Thanks, Todd. As an Aussie I have from early childhood been fascinated by the great railroads of the Western US and Canada. I've often wondered what happened to the Milwaukee Road and its distinctive electrics. We have rail trails going in here Down Under now and we can hike, cycle (even electric cycle) through tunnels and along manageable grades. Other groups want discontinued rail lines restored but economics decide these issues. Our Inland Rail running 1700kms (1,000 miles) from Melbourne, Vic. to Brisbane, Qld. is an attempt to build another Class 1 Road and restore rail to its former glory.
I once ran trains on the former Northern Pacific, current BNSF along the Yellowstone River from Laurel MT to Glendive MT. You can see many miles of Milwaukee Road right of way, a few bridges and their old car shops in Miles City. I would also run their old mainline from Terry MT to Hettinger ND. I found the history of the railroad fascinating while I was working there and feel fortunate to have ran on Ol' Milwaukee Tracks.
Fantastic. Thank you so much for your interest in this part of our history and the time you spent creating this little masterpiece. Now on to the NP or GN?🤞
Finally, a high-quality documentary on the abandoned Milwaukee Road in my state! I live a few miles outside Tacoma, and i mapped the entirety of the MILW from Seattle to the Idaho state line with a friend not too long ago, excluding branches. Had I remembered about this project, I would've sent it to you. Either way, incredible documentary! The old right-of-way doesn't get enough recognition, and, it being my favorite railroad, it's nice to see someone spending this much time on it! I hope to one day do a similar journey exploring the entire roadbed! (where possible, of course!)
I used to see many of the cars that belonged to The Milwaukee Road in the Menomonee Valley area of the western end of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Now it's being rebuilt with stores and small businesses but I miss seeing the trains running through the city,north in the morning and south in the evening!
I hired out on a remnant of the Old Milwaukee Road in Southern Indiana. It’s sad to think the men and woman it took to run this railroad are all gone! Thank you for your story, it was amazing!
Outstanding! Raised in eastern Washington, starting in Doris and Cedar Falls in the mid 50s where my Dad worked the substations before getting work with GE at Hanford. We also had friends at Hyak, near the Cascade summit. This video really made my day!
This is just amazing. The drone work is top-notch. You look at a heavy-duty main-line railroad as something permanent but that's just not the case. This reminds me of the Pennsylvania RR through my hometown of Greenfield, IN. A high-speed dual track railroad which is now the "Pennsy Trail". Thank you for producing this magnificent piece of art containing so much history!
Great video -- thanks for putting this together. In 2004 my daughter (then 16 years old) and I did a self-contained mountain bike ride along the Milwaukee Road right-of-way from Taft, Montana to Rattlesnake Lake, Washington. We road the RoW where we could, but had to parallel it past several obstructions (e.g., Cow Creek Trestle, Rock Lake, Beverly Bridge). It took about a week and was a memorable experience -- some good memories and some difficult. We had to push our bikes through several miles of sand from the Beverly Bridge up to the Boyleston Tunnel -- it was there my daughter said "Dad -- I'm having a hard time keeping a good attitude". In spite of that, she's often said that she'd repeat the trip in a heartbeat. It was nice to be able to revisit many of the sections from the comfort of my home.
Very nicely and professionally done Todd! The Milwaukee Rd. is my favorite and I have explored it from Harlowton to Marengo as well as Ellensburg to Cle Elum. I have run trains from Toppenish to Cle Elum on the BN; specifically the Great Western # 51.
I’m originally from Chicago but live far away now. I have some family items and one was a Milwaukee Road dining plate. That has led me to learn a lot about them. Great video, thanks so much ! ❤
I find railroad history to be fascinating too, especially the MILW Road and I was also 5 years old when the last train ran. Great video, I appreciate all the time you spent on it and I’m glad you got the Beverly bridge before the pedestrian decking was put in. Between that and the bright silver 5 foot tall railing, the bridge will never look the same.
Outstanding video. I knew about The Milwaukee Road but didn't really appreciate it until after the demise of the Pacific Extension. As an amateur railroad historian, I appreciate your detailed attention to the history of the MILW.
WOW FANTASTIC well done video, My wife and I watched it last evening and it was excellent but at the same time bitter sweet. I was fortunate to work with a ton of Milwaukee Road guys when I started on the CP 30 years ago in the Wisconsin area now all are retired. It was a blast working with all them and that generation of railroaders. I also knew a few that worked out that way in the western areas back in the 70s and lots of cool stories. Thinking through that awesome video of yours how I wished we could take our recording equipment and go back in time to experience that part of the Railroad. Got saddened in parts of the video that a lot of that is now gone such as some of the bridges and such but at least they were able to save some of it for preservation. Enjoyed watching and have a wonderful rest of your weekend.(Steve)
This brought back memories! I was a communications technician for AT&T for 28 years, and we maintained a transcontinental cable from Ellensburg to Garcia, underneath the John Wayne Trail, and three of its regeneration huts were mine! Each about 20 miles apart, I remember Cle Elum (Thorpe), Snoqualmie and Garcia. I visited each once a month and more often if alarms came in. I used the John Wayne Trail for this in my 4WD work truck, which sometimes (especially in winter) could be very dangerous. We were told to access the JWT from certain points off the main roads (especially I-90) and were warned never to use the old bridges or tunnels, but, when the boss wasn't looking, we'd go through the Big Bad Tunnel!! We had keys to those gates. Good thing we never got caught, because we had no legitimate reason to be in there. When you came out of the tunnel from East to West, you had driven under the divide of the Cascades, and the climate changed abruptly from semi-desert to almost a rain forest. The trail became much more dangerous at this point because of the moisture. Along with the state police and the park rangers, we were the ONLY people allowed on the trail with a motor vehicle. I can remember driving over horse-poop in summer and having to use snowmobiles and Snow-Cats in winter, which I hated! The Yakima River had very steep rock banks and it was freezing cold all year, and if you fell in, you were a dead duck. There were bears and wolves, but I never saw any, but I sure was afraid of them at night. I would find tracks sometimes. This was Sasquatch Country (the Snoqualmie National Forest) too, again, I never saw one. Even some of Ted Bundy's victims were discovered on the Snoqualmie Access Road (I-90 Exit 62, Kachess Lake Road), so that Volkswagen of his traveled the same road I did. The phone company loved to bury cable on railroads, because then they were virtually invulnerable to damage. I saw many AT&T Right-Of-Way marker poles in this video (the old wooden 4x4s) and I can remember having to replace some of them. I was based in Yakima and any work on the JWT was good for burning up a whole day! It was a good job and I miss it! I'm retired now, but if I were still young and healthy, I would go back tomorrow. I'm from Minneapolis originally, and I was well-acquainted with this railroad, the NP, the UP and the BNSF. Thank you for making this documentary of the Milwaukee Road!
This is a great video. You should do a Vol 2 video to cover the other Milwaukee Road gems around Puget Sound. On the old Everett Branch, there are two impressive trestles; the one north of Snoqualmie Fall is a beautiful horseshoe curve. Another Milwaukee Road artifact you need to document are the two, wire shields under the N. Meridian overpass. They are left-over from the electrification era. They can be viewed from Todd Road. There are also the depots in Duvall, Monroe and Everett. Also in Everett are the pilings where the roadbed once was. At the intersection of East Marginal Way and Diagonal Ave S. in Seattle is a Milwaukee Road tri-light signal still used today.
Thank you very much for hard work you did on this video it reminds me of part of the Milwaukee road in my old town which had the Milwaukee trains and railroad yard in my old town.
Absolutely a SUPERB job Todd on capturing one of my favorite railroads, the Milwaukee Road on the Pacific Extension. I grew up as a kid in the late 60's by the main road of the Milwaukee Road in the suburbs of Milwaukee, WI. It makes me sad that I can no longer watch the Road coming up the grade out of Elm Grove, heavy on the throttle or seeing the Hiawatha flying by on its way to St Paul, MN. I still looks for remnants of this once great railroad as I now travel through MT, ID, and WA. When I think about all the time, money, and work that created these now relics of history, we could never redo today what those pioneers accomplished when these were originally established. I am so thankful that many right-of-ways have gone to Rails to Trails route of reuse. Thank you, WA State Parks, for renovating bridges like the Renslow Trestle east of Ellensburg to once again allow safe travel of people over these historic structures. Now we need to get some of the GN Trestles on the Columbia Plateau Trail decked for travel! 🙂
You’ve done an outstanding job with this video. Great cinematography, narration, music, historical knowledge. Wish there were more videos like these for other railroads.
Outstanding.
Wow, what a great video. I went to work for the Milwaukee in 1978 pounding spikes. I never worked on the lines west, but worked with fellow employees that did and lived west of the twin cities. This video sort of reinforces the stories and places they told me about. I ended up working for the Soo, then CP Rail until 2000 when I left as a railroad detective. I have lots of great memories working as a railroader.
This is an incredibly well-done documentary on the remnants of the Milwaukee Road in Washington state. Thanks so much for producing this! I was lucky to witness much of the Milwaukee trackage through Washington state and even Montana on a camping trip I took as a kid with my parents, brother and sister back in 1968 from the Chicago area to the Pacific coast and back. Curiously, I didn't see many Milwaukee Road trains except once at night and in the distance when we turned south for Yellowstone National Park in Montana. Also, I was employed as a locomotive engineer (now retired) at the Soo Line's former Milwaukee Road, Bensenville (IL) yard. I got to operate a lot of former Milwaukee power such as EMD MP15ACs, GP40s, GP38-2s and SD10s over former Milwaukee trackage mainly between Chicago and Davenport, IA.
I grew up in the Town of Cosmopolis, Washington and I remember the Milwaukee Road Train that passed through town 7 days a week saddened by the end of this R 7:30pm
I clicked on this video and almost clicked it off when I saw that it was over an hour long. I then thought, oh I'll give it 5 minutes. I ended up staying for the entire video. Well done Todd. This video was awesome. No way it could be done better.
My Dad, my uncle and a cousin of mine worked for the Milwaukee Railroad in the 60's through the mid 70's out of Janesville Wisconsin. They laid off alot of people and you were very lucky to still have a job with them in the late 70's as my cousin found out. They loved working for the Railroad. It was their life and it was a damn shame what became of it.
I worked as a gandy for Wisconsin River Rail Transit Commission during the 90's, rehabbing old Milwaukee road track, Muscoday to Waukesha. I lived in Janesville at the time. Brutal work much enjoyed tho.
I was fortunate enough to live next to the Milwaukee Road's Chehalis Sub from 1974 to 1983. I was just 2 years old in '74. I was fortunate enough to see the last few years of this great railroad. The Chehalis Sub saw about 4 to 5 trains a day with the Portland, OR trains mixed in with the locals. The Milwaukee left the West in 1980 when I was just 8 yrs old and then in 1981, I got to see the first few years of Weyerhauser's Chehalis Western continue the tradition of hauling logs to Tacoma using the Milwaukee's own shop built log cars they purchased with the deal. Chehalis Western and the log bunks are long gone but the Chehalis Sub and Morton Sub still live on. However, now the Tacoma Hill is in jeopardy as City of Tacoma is pushing to turn it into a trail. Tacoma Rail turned its Frederickson local over to another line that operates the other end of the railroad from Chehalis because the Hill is too costly to operate.
Mr, TH-cam, if you are seeing this, please give Todd Hilton an award for all time best video.
I am not a train geek, and still I was enthralled with the scope and beauty of this production.
I'll be on the lookout for more Nowhere Video Production vids!
Amazing video!! I find abandoned stuff, especially railroads absolutely astonishing. At the same time it makes me sad watching stuff like this or exploring abandoned railroads myself. To think men broke their backs with pride and died building these structures just to have it all abandoned and destroyed hurts my soul
After watching this.....All I can say is WOW!
This has to be the best produced and presented long form documentary I have seen on TH-cam. Well done.
Certainly of an American railroad.
Easily the best abandoned railroad documentary I’ve seen
Wonderful documentary I am in awe as to the greatness of that railroad. Thank You
Wow, what a production! You have done the Milwaukie Road proud with this memorable and surreal video. The emotion that this video produces brings me to tears of sadness and also joy to see such a video detailing these locations. Thank you so much!
Your welcome
Beautifully done documentary. Well done. Would love to see an Idaho and Montana segment. Thank you for putting this work into my favourite railroad.
I was in college in the later 70's in Ellensburg, Washington. I still recall seeing the orange and black Milwaukee locomotives passing through the CWU campus as well as traversing Snoqualmie Pass next to I-90. Regrettably, I didn't have an interest in trains back then. I had no idea I was watching the end of an era play out. I wish I had taken more pictures but at least I got to see the Milwaukee when it was still in operation. Thanks for the outstanding video.
Bravo such a fantastic, wonderful, just one of a kind Documentry of the Milwaukee road!! i lived in a small town of Glenview illinois right by the tracks on henley st were the trains were non stop in the sixties and 70s what a wonderous time it was , so getting to the point my mother divorced my birth father and later remarried my step dad who work for the milwaukee road until its demise in the middle 80s he would atest to the fact that everything you had in this video was true and correct and if alive today would have loved to watch it !! what a sad ending to such a great railroad but you know when you look at what you have done here you keep it alive Todd i got tears watching some of the stuff in the video it wasnt ment to go away like it did!! it was leader from the state of the art electric operations to the milwaukee shops building there own freight cars , the tunnels ,the bridges the list goes on yep my step dad woulda been proud of you Todd !! thank you you keeping something dear to me alive ! again bravo!
My dad (Jim Irvin) was the agent at Cedar Falls, Wa from 1958 until the last day of operation. We
lived at Cedar Falls (railroad house) from 1958 to 1970, mom and dad built a new house about 5
miles away. Dad had 40 years with the Milwaukee Road. I was a operator from 1976 (16 years old really!)
until May 1979 got laid off. I worked at Cedar Falls, South Cle Elum, Kittitas and a couple of times
at Beverly. Cedar Falls what a great place to grow up! My dad passed in 2016, age 90 and he was
a World War 2 veteran, Navy.
Wow! That's something. I grew up south of Tacoma along the Chehalis Sub, near Roy. I got to see about 5 trains a day with the Portland trains and locals. I know that was more traffic than the mainline saw in the last few years.
Todd, that was fantastic. Great photography, excellent historic storytelling, great narration. Well done! I have seen many of the structures growing up here in Washington, but didn't know their origin. Now I do!
What can I say??? Perfect--- very well done, excellent--- and then some. A complete exhibit of what the MILW used to be,and how it got there. Also--- a complete memorial to corporate greed,stupidity and malfeasance to ever let this all die. Out of 5 stars, I give it 20. THANK YOU!!!!
What an amazing video. It is great to see that a fair amount of the MILW infrastructure is still in place. A well done documentary, an enjoyable watch.
What a fantastic historical production!
Well done Todd!
One of my best friends is a Milw Road guy…
This is GOLD!
Wow!! A very excellent documentary of the Milwaukee Road in the West. Thank you! I grew up along the Milwaukee Road's Chehalis Sub near Roy, WA. We lived there from 1974 to 1983. I got to see the last few years of the Milwaukee. This line sported 1 or 2 daily locals and 3 Portland, OR trains as well as the nightly WAM Logger. I was just 8 years old when the Embargo of Lines West took effect. I had the privilege to ride the rails of the entire Chehalis Sub in 1992 under the ownership of Weyerhauser's Chehalis Western RR shortly before they ceased operations. They hauled logs to Tacoma using the former Milwaukee shop-built log cars from 1981-1992. I was told those cars were built in the early 1970's from the first run of 1940's era Milwaukee Road PS-1 boxcars.
Some things to note concerning the line West of Snoqualmie Pass. The poles and centenary arches you said sported telegraph lines actually did not. The canted poles next to the rail bed were actually catenary poles for the electrification. The crossarms sported the 3,000 volt supply lines for the centenary. This is also true of the crossarms remaining on the steel centenary supports on the bridges. The Telegraph lines ran further away from the railroad bed and actually followed the ravines of each of the creekbeds and were never attached to the bridges. I was fortunate enough to see all of this in 1992 after taking that last ride on the Chehalis Western. The telegraph lines, catenary poles and cannibalized signals were all still intact. We accessed the right of way at the Asahel Curtis trail. The location was a fill known as Humpback Creek. (Famous photographer Asahel Curtis snapped a promo shot of a Bipolar Electric locomotive heading the Hiawatha passenger train on that fill prior to 1920.) They were just starting to clear the right of way for the trail you see today. Burlington Northern actually had purchased the line from Maple Valley all the way to Easton in 1980 with intentions to run trains over Snoqualmie in favor of its easier grades than that of Stampede Pass. After the Hull Creek bridge collapse and unrealized traffic, BN removed the track from Easton to Renton after selling the Milwaukee right of way to Washington State in 1988. My guess is the signals you saw piled up in that one area may have been done by the crews we saw in 1992 because the signals were still intact when we hiked between Humpback and Hansen Creek. I'm guessing the snowshed that still stands is at Humpback Creek. It definitely once was much longer. The reason it looks rebuilt is because according to Frederick Hyde's 1990 Milwaukee Road publication in color, a section if the Humpback Creek snowshed was rebuilt in 1979 or 1980 after a derailment damaged a section of the shed.
One of the greatest RR documentaries I have ever viewed. I cannot imagine the logistics you've done to bring this tour de force to life; the time, the scouting of locations, the camera angles and the money spent........ just astounding. So grateful that your vision of this great, abandoned railroad, can now be presented to all of us. Thank you.
Outstanding! Easily the best video of an abandoned line I've seen.
Wow, thanks!
This is probably one of the best, PBS quality documentaries that I have seen in a very long time. I am a fan of railroads and have been fascinated by abandoned railroads for a very long time.
The Milwaukee Road also ran through my home town of Beecher, IL. It ran parallel a mile east from the shared Chicago & Eastern Illinois/Missouri Pacific railroads (Now CSX and Union Pacific). Abandoned two years before I was born, I have childhood memories of the painted railroad crossing symbol still at the abandoned grade crossing on Indiana Ave a decade later before the road was repaved in the early 90’s.
Eagle Lake Road to the north of Beecher had a notoriously steep grade crossing for motorists and after the tracks were gone, my dad used to jump the crossing with his 1972 Olds Cutlass all the time when I was a toddler. It was leveled out somewhere in the mid 90’s.
Thank you for this enjoyable documentary. Very well done.
This is amazing. As a lifelong Milwaukeean who saw the railroad completely disappear from it's home city since the 1980's, the story you've told, the video and the music stir emotions. Sad to see what has been lost of the greatness that once was, but grateful to you and others who care to preserve what remains in beautiful Washington State. Your video is an absolute treasure. God bless you and your family.
I finished watching your video last evening. I usually don't watch videos as long as this one. It was well worth the time I spent. Thanks again.
Great video of the Milw RoW, thank you!
3rd time watching this, thanks again for the best post-1980 production of the Milw in Washington!!🧡🖤🧡🖤🧡
This fantastic documentary is better than 98% of movies shown in theaters. I felt this overwhelming sense of sadness over how time erases humans and human built endeavors. Think of the men and woman who worked this amazing stretch of railroad for three-quarters of a century. They are now mostly gone. The brilliant engineers who designed those tunnels and bridges, works of art, are all gone. The film narrator had the perfect voice. I was left wishing that somehow this remarkable train line could have been saved.
Excellent work. It's strange that no other rail company would have bought the line.
Great Northern and Northern Pacific made the route redundant.
Definitely true. The irony is the Milwaukee pushed thru the 1960's to merge with the more willing Chicago & Northwestern but the ICC dragged its feet on many needed mergers, not realizing that highway traffic was the stiff competition and keeping the big roads separate was no longer necessary. Unfortunately, by the late1970's, the infrastructure was in terribly bad shape and would've taken more money than the tightly regulated railroads were willing to put out to revive it. In fact, after the 1977 bankruptcy and Embargo of Lines West, the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad sent a young employee named Bill Edgar out west for quite some time to do an in-depth study of the Milwaukee's Pacific Extension to determine if the line was worth purchasing from the Milwaukee. After long deliberation, it was determined it would cost too much for the C&NW to purchase and rehabilitate the infrastructure and give the land locked C&NW it's own outlet to the West. Bill Edgar is an avid photographer and took many images of the Milwaukee operations in the Northwest in 1978 and '79. Another former employee that used to work between Portage, WI and Milwaukee said that in 1980, a Japanese company that did alot of shipping with the Milwaukee Road actually wanted to purchase the whole railroad and run it their self. They had plans to electrify too. A judge blocked the purchase. My guess is the stiff trade competition with Japan at the time and the thought of a foreign company having a large stake in US territory swayed that decision. So trying to revive it was deeply considered, but just like the Rock Island RR that fell at the same time, the "vultures" swooped in on the corpse and swept up those portions that they deemed viable for operation. It truly is sad because this railroad was the shortest and most direct route to Chicago from Tacoma and would've been great to see still alive.
Because A: everything that was worth being served, was already being served by other railroads, and B: the line was in very poor shape, which is part of what led to the downfall of the Milwaukee, it would have cost too much to rebuild it to be a reliable railroad line again.
Phenomenally well-produced documentary. Thank you for keeping the spirit of the Milwaukee alive!
Good history lesson! Thank you!
I grew up in Milwaukee, and my dad worked in railroads (for the US Army) There’s next to nothing about this railroad in town so I always want to learn more about it. Thank you for this video!
I have seen pictures of the two power house chimneys that are left from Milwaukee shops along the river.
Fabulous production…Thank-you!!
This route is on my bucket list. I followed a portion of the Milwaukee Road down the Musselshell River in Montana by bicycle about six years ago on my way from Portland OR to Bismarck ND. I couldn't ride much of it but followed its course through Harlowton, Roundup, Ingomar and Miles City. The Milwaukee Road used to haul a water tender up from Miles City to Ingomar so the town could have water for its residents and industry. (sheep shearing) This is a wonderful production with drone shots and overlays. Thank You for this treat.
Wonderful homage to the CMStP&P, it must have been a fantastic ride. The Pacific Coast Extention served the U.S. well.
Thank you, Todd, for enlightening people's to the historical heritage of The Milwaukee Road.
CMSTP&P lines west. A real shame that it's gone. Great job on this documentary. Thank you very much.
Glad you enjoyed it
What a beautiful documentary Mr Hilton. You should be very proud of your self as an amateur videographer, I can only imagine the time you put into this, the filming and editing not the least to say the gathering of the copyrights and selecting the most incredible music - which is worth it all by itself to listen too.
The Title drew me in as I have In-Laws living in Milwaukee and I have never heard of this RR before now. They are excited as they have plans to put up a new Chicago, Milwaukee to Minneapolis route in the near future.
In retirement I picked up Microsoft Flight Simulator and love to recreate famous routes, such as the first Automobile trip across America in 1904, The Oregon Trail, Amelia Earhart's etc. I believe you have inspired me to check out the rest of this route and create a Flight plan out of it to take the journey from above - so to say.
Bless you for the work you did on this as it truly is a work of art.
Been editing/ Video taping since 8th grade and am 48 ,worked for a public tv station many years ago . I strive to be professional. Thank you
I have another documentary I did on the Shanghai tunnels you might enjoy.
Thank you. I will watch it as well. I have a friend who wants to move back to that area.
This is the video I've been waiting for. Magnificent work. I get bothered every time the Pacific extension is called a "costly mistake." You can look at it that way if you choose. For others, the history and legacy of Mil-West is a treasure. Thank you Todd Hilton and family.
I'm sorry to say Smokey's in So. Cle Elum lost its least, at least at the depot location.
Absolutely brilliant documentary about the Milwaukee Road rail line, excellent photography and historical research.
I’ve had a fascination with the Milwaukee Road for many years, especially when riding the Cedar River Trail. An outstanding tribute to the Old Milwaukee Road and its legacy.
PBS quality documentary, a true labor of love. Great job!
when I first saw that the video was over an hour long, I figured I would just watch the first few minutes. Then I ended up watching the whole thing in one sitting. You absolutely knocked it out of the park with the imagery, the history, and the stories. I am looking forward to future videos on the Milwaukee!
BRAVO. AMAZING WORK HERE. easily one of the best railroad documentarys ive ever watched. may the milwaukee road live on.
WELL DONE!!!!! This is a fantastic video. Thanks for posting a wonderful history of the Milwaukee Road.
Im just over 20 minutes into the video but i can already see that a lot of research was done and the bar of quality was set very high! The pacing, music choice and voiceover is also solid. And i won't even touch on the cinematography because it's too great to describe! These are the kind of videos that deseve millions of wiews!
Thank you for keeping my AuDHD ass entertained with this quality video for that long!
May you have a great day and i wish the alorythm pushes this video to the right audience.😊❤
Standing ovation to an excellent tribute video for our Milwaukee Road!! Thank you for producing this!!
If there was any railroad related documentary I would want to be seen done it would be this, "What Became of the Milwaukee Road Mainline in Washington State?" Well you did it, and superbly done I might add. Your narration, the stills and drone work, showing aspects of the right of way in the "then and now" and the production work is top notch. And the fact you said it was a chance visit to Lind in 2017 that sparked your interest is to be considered fairly recent so that's very impressive that you were able to do all the work in just a few year's time. I also liked how you incorporated your children's enthusiasm to be out with you in that it reflected my own enthusiasm at that age of watching the Milwaukee run here in Washington. Thank you so much for your time and efforts too do this documentary, I have shared it with others and it is greatly appreciated.
This is wonderfully done. Thank you for producing and sharing it.
As someone who volunteers at one of the few surviving Great Northern roundhouses it's always sad to see the Mighty Milwaukee Road in its current state. On benhill road in St Paul Minnesota a small bridge stands. Owned by the Canadian Pacific track speed is 35mph but when the Milwaukee Road owned the line it heralded the Atlantic Hiawatha's into Minneapolis Minnesota and the track speed was 110mph
They did 110 thru the Cities? I find that hard to believe, especially over Shortline Hill.
Where is this Great Northern Roundhouse?
@@davidgow7131St Paul Minnesota
It is bittersweet to see what once was! You did a good job on this one!
Thank you so much for your superb Documentary! I enjoyed your detailed and unhurried treatment of a fascinating subject. Your splendid use of drone photography adds a wonderful touch. I found myself moved at times by your eloquent narration.
Kudos on your film. You’ve managed to tell a great story with respect to the past and also without closing the door on the future potential. The Milwaukee road story isnt one of loss of a railroad but one of change, discovery and adventure. Thank you for making this my day is better because of you.
WOW! What an incredible documentary, well done. I enjoyed every minute of it. I love the way the narration and cinematography really capture the history and current beauty of this remarkable trail. I plan to ride it again this fall, and will feel more knowledgeable when I do. Thank you so much for all the work that went into this!
Tkanks for this wonderful labor of love with great commentary and drone work. Oh how I wish I could have ridden the “Olimpian Hiawatha” on this amazing railroad!”.
Glad you liked it
That was really well done!! I hope for more in the future.
This is probably the best historical content I’ve found on this rail line! Thank you!
Well done. You've given me new appreciation for what the Milwaukee Road accomplished. Now I have four words for everyone that owns the right of way. Bring. Back. The. Milwaukee.
Once I started watching this, I couldn’t stop. This by far is the best presentation on the Milwaukee Road that I have seen. Thank You so much for doing this and for sharing this with us.
I love the soundtrack of this. Abandoned railroad alignments and structures are so cool to spot and learn about.
This is great! I'm a historian and I really appreciate the research that went into this. I rode the trail in 2022 and you make me want to do it all over again.
thank you for the video on the Milwaukee road railway in Washington state you have done a great job the narration and before and after shots are excellent with the music all fits together just right its a shame that the state of Washington state did not buy it and run tourist trains would have kept the railway alive well into the future this video is far better then the rest of the history videos out there i hope you will keep making more of them thank you so very much Bruce
I also made a documentary on the Shanghai tunnels that you may enjoy
I am really grateful that you put the time and effort in this wonderful masterpiece. Thank you
My pleasure!
I'm kind of speechless, Todd. That was a beautiful homage to one of my favorite railroads, albeit one I only experienced in the Chicago/Milwaukee region. Thanks for the wonderful tour of the Pacific Extension in Washington.
Very nice piece of work! I was Coast Division, 1971 to 1980. Hired out on the UP in 1980 and retired in 2013 on a RCO job in Fife yard. I was one of the lucky ones. Many families suffered financial catastrophe when the Milwaukee folded. Now I ride my Lectric 3.0 Ebike where GE boxcabs once roamed. Very surreal experience for me.
I grew up next to the Chehalis Sub near Roy from 1974 to 1983. I was 8 years old when the Milwaukee left in 1980 and missed it so much. Got to see a couple of years of Weyerhauser's Chehalis Western before moving to Estern Washington. My dad's cousin worked for Weyerhauser and he arranged some visits to the CWWR. I got to ride the Chehalis Western in spring 1991 and again 1992 and got to see the whole operation from Tacoma to Curtis and Vail. It's possible we could've passed each other at Fife on our ride into Tacoma in '92. The CWWR shut down about a month later in '92. One of the many reasons for the shut down was the engineer to Tacoma was their only officially certified employee that had clearance to pull the train into UP's CTC controlled Fife Yard and then back the train into Port of Tacoma, and he was retiring soon. I have such fond memories of the Chehalis Sub and glad it still exists, although the Hill is in jeopardy of becoming a trail as Tacoma Rail has deemed it too expensive to run.
I'm not much of a railfan at all, but being a Route 66 fan (who has driven the entire route from Chicago to Santa Monica), I am totally fascinated by historical routes like this, and videos presented as well as this. Much respect to the creators of this video and to the Milwaukee Road!
A wonderful documentary. Thank you for your tremendous effort in searching out all those remote locations. Especially sad for me to see it all abandoned, because at my age (73) I well remember when the CMSP&P Pacific Coast Extension was still a going concern and being documented in railroad periodicals like Trains Magazine. Glad to see many of the structures have survived.
One of the saddest closures of all time...beautiful classy video production
Thank you for this , one of the best historical documentaries on TH-cam, and especially about the Milwaukee Road.
You did a MOST-EXCELLENT job on this documentary! WOW! Thank you for sharing this!
Thank you for putting your heart and soul into this and for including us on your journey. This is phenomenal!
Todd, just wanted to say what a beautiful documentary. What a wonderful testament to this historical road. Thank you!
I live in kenosha wi and Milwaukee road was my first favorite railroad... Loved this video
Last summer, I rode my bike across the Palouse to Cascades Trail from Cedar Falls to Tekoa. I became fascinated by the history and couldn't wait to see your documentary. My wife and I just finished watching it and we both thought it was outstanding! Thank you and your family for all the time you put into this! Your drone footage was amazing and the historical photos and information you shared brought the Milwaukee Road back to life. Thanks again!
Oh wow! thanks
Made my Sunday morning. Great narration, video and music. Heartfelt.
Thanks, Todd. As an Aussie I have from early childhood been fascinated by the great railroads of the Western US and Canada. I've often wondered what happened to the Milwaukee Road and its distinctive electrics. We have rail trails going in here Down Under now and we can hike, cycle (even electric cycle) through tunnels and along manageable grades. Other groups want discontinued rail lines restored but economics decide these issues. Our Inland Rail running 1700kms (1,000 miles) from Melbourne, Vic. to Brisbane, Qld. is an attempt to build another Class 1 Road and restore rail to its former glory.
I once ran trains on the former Northern Pacific, current BNSF along the Yellowstone River from Laurel MT to Glendive MT. You can see many miles of Milwaukee Road right of way, a few bridges and their old car shops in Miles City. I would also run their old mainline from Terry MT to Hettinger ND. I found the history of the railroad fascinating while I was working there and feel fortunate to have ran on Ol' Milwaukee Tracks.
Fantastic. Thank you so much for your interest in this part of our history and the time you spent creating this little masterpiece. Now on to the NP or GN?🤞
Finally, a high-quality documentary on the abandoned Milwaukee Road in my state! I live a few miles outside Tacoma, and i mapped the entirety of the MILW from Seattle to the Idaho state line with a friend not too long ago, excluding branches. Had I remembered about this project, I would've sent it to you. Either way, incredible documentary! The old right-of-way doesn't get enough recognition, and, it being my favorite railroad, it's nice to see someone spending this much time on it! I hope to one day do a similar journey exploring the entire roadbed! (where possible, of course!)
Glad you liked it check up my documentary on the Shanghai tunnels
I used to see many of the cars that belonged to The Milwaukee Road in the Menomonee Valley area of the western end of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Now it's being rebuilt with stores and small businesses but I miss seeing the trains running through the city,north in the morning and south in the evening!
I hired out on a remnant of the Old Milwaukee Road in Southern Indiana. It’s sad to think the men and woman it took to run this railroad are all gone! Thank you for your story, it was amazing!
Still a few of us left,
Thank You so much Todd for the wonderful video of my very most favorite railroad
Outstanding! Raised in eastern Washington, starting in Doris and Cedar Falls in the mid 50s where my Dad worked the substations before getting work with GE at Hanford. We also had friends at Hyak, near the Cascade summit. This video really made my day!
This is absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much for your efforts. Gorgeous. My only hope is this video last longer than the Milwaukee Road.
This is just amazing. The drone work is top-notch. You look at a heavy-duty main-line railroad as something permanent but that's just not the case. This reminds me of the Pennsylvania RR through my hometown of Greenfield, IN. A high-speed dual track railroad which is now the "Pennsy Trail". Thank you for producing this magnificent piece of art containing so much history!
Great video -- thanks for putting this together. In 2004 my daughter (then 16 years old) and I did a self-contained mountain bike ride along the Milwaukee Road right-of-way from Taft, Montana to Rattlesnake Lake, Washington. We road the RoW where we could, but had to parallel it past several obstructions (e.g., Cow Creek Trestle, Rock Lake, Beverly Bridge). It took about a week and was a memorable experience -- some good memories and some difficult. We had to push our bikes through several miles of sand from the Beverly Bridge up to the Boyleston Tunnel -- it was there my daughter said "Dad -- I'm having a hard time keeping a good attitude". In spite of that, she's often said that she'd repeat the trip in a heartbeat. It was nice to be able to revisit many of the sections from the comfort of my home.
Very nicely and professionally done Todd! The Milwaukee Rd. is my favorite and I have explored it from Harlowton to Marengo as well as Ellensburg to Cle Elum. I have run trains from Toppenish to Cle Elum on the BN; specifically the Great Western # 51.
Enjoyed this with several cups of coffee and some chilled-out dogs on a rainy Sunday morning! Great job!
well worth the wait the opening bit when the f unit is about to hit the camera then it transitions to the row with the music fading gave me goosebumps
Very good!
I’m originally from Chicago but live far away now. I have some family items and one was a Milwaukee Road dining plate. That has led me to learn a lot about them. Great video, thanks so much ! ❤
I find railroad history to be fascinating too, especially the MILW Road and I was also 5 years old when the last train ran. Great video, I appreciate all the time you spent on it and I’m glad you got the Beverly bridge before the pedestrian decking was put in. Between that and the bright silver 5 foot tall railing, the bridge will never look the same.
Thank you for making, then posting this video. Although it is bitter sweet, I felt compelled to say something before I have finished watching it.
Absolutely love this! Well done, Todd!
Thanks for watching
Good work. Thanks for posting.
Great job on this documentary. Thanks.
Outstanding video. I knew about The Milwaukee Road but didn't really appreciate it until after the demise of the Pacific Extension. As an amateur railroad historian, I appreciate your detailed attention to the history of the MILW.
WOW FANTASTIC well done video, My wife and I watched it last evening and it was excellent but at the same time bitter sweet. I was fortunate to work with a ton of Milwaukee Road guys when I started on the CP 30 years ago in the Wisconsin area now all are retired. It was a blast working with all them and that generation of railroaders. I also knew a few that worked out that way in the western areas back in the 70s and lots of cool stories. Thinking through that awesome video of yours how I wished we could take our recording equipment and go back in time to experience that part of the Railroad. Got saddened in parts of the video that a lot of that is now gone such as some of the bridges and such but at least they were able to save some of it for preservation. Enjoyed watching and have a wonderful rest of your weekend.(Steve)
This brought back memories! I was a communications technician for AT&T for 28 years, and we maintained a transcontinental cable from Ellensburg to Garcia, underneath the John Wayne Trail, and three of its regeneration huts were mine! Each about 20 miles apart, I remember Cle Elum (Thorpe), Snoqualmie and Garcia. I visited each once a month and more often if alarms came in. I used the John Wayne Trail for this in my 4WD work truck, which sometimes (especially in winter) could be very dangerous. We were told to access the JWT from certain points off the main roads (especially I-90) and were warned never to use the old bridges or tunnels, but, when the boss wasn't looking, we'd go through the Big Bad Tunnel!! We had keys to those gates. Good thing we never got caught, because we had no legitimate reason to be in there. When you came out of the tunnel from East to West, you had driven under the divide of the Cascades, and the climate changed abruptly from semi-desert to almost a rain forest. The trail became much more dangerous at this point because of the moisture.
Along with the state police and the park rangers, we were the ONLY people allowed on the trail with a motor vehicle. I can remember driving over horse-poop in summer and having to use snowmobiles and Snow-Cats in winter, which I hated! The Yakima River had very steep rock banks and it was freezing cold all year, and if you fell in, you were a dead duck. There were bears and wolves, but I never saw any, but I sure was afraid of them at night. I would find tracks sometimes. This was Sasquatch Country (the Snoqualmie National Forest) too, again, I never saw one. Even some of Ted Bundy's victims were discovered on the Snoqualmie Access Road (I-90 Exit 62, Kachess Lake Road), so that Volkswagen of his traveled the same road I did.
The phone company loved to bury cable on railroads, because then they were virtually invulnerable to damage. I saw many AT&T Right-Of-Way marker poles in this video (the old wooden 4x4s) and I can remember having to replace some of them. I was based in Yakima and any work on the JWT was good for burning up a whole day! It was a good job and I miss it! I'm retired now, but if I were still young and healthy, I would go back tomorrow. I'm from Minneapolis originally, and I was well-acquainted with this railroad, the NP, the UP and the BNSF. Thank you for making this documentary of the Milwaukee Road!
This is a great video. You should do a Vol 2 video to cover the other Milwaukee Road gems around Puget Sound. On the old Everett Branch, there are two impressive trestles; the one north of Snoqualmie Fall is a beautiful horseshoe curve. Another Milwaukee Road artifact you need to document are the two, wire shields under the N. Meridian overpass. They are left-over from the electrification era. They can be viewed from Todd Road. There are also the depots in Duvall, Monroe and Everett. Also in Everett are the pilings where the roadbed once was. At the intersection of East Marginal Way and Diagonal Ave S. in Seattle is a Milwaukee Road tri-light signal still used today.
Thank you very much for hard work you did on this video it reminds me of part of the Milwaukee road in my old town which had the Milwaukee trains and railroad yard in my old town.
Absolutely a SUPERB job Todd on capturing one of my favorite railroads, the Milwaukee Road on the Pacific Extension. I grew up as a kid in the late 60's by the main road of the Milwaukee Road in the suburbs of Milwaukee, WI. It makes me sad that I can no longer watch the Road coming up the grade out of Elm Grove, heavy on the throttle or seeing the Hiawatha flying by on its way to St Paul, MN. I still looks for remnants of this once great railroad as I now travel through MT, ID, and WA. When I think about all the time, money, and work that created these now relics of history, we could never redo today what those pioneers accomplished when these were originally established. I am so thankful that many right-of-ways have gone to Rails to Trails route of reuse.
Thank you, WA State Parks, for renovating bridges like the Renslow Trestle east of Ellensburg to once again allow safe travel of people over these historic structures. Now we need to get some of the GN Trestles on the Columbia Plateau Trail decked for travel! 🙂
Great work!! Thank you so much.