Category: Standard Gauge

  • The second part of this special gallery of Milwaukee Road scenes! Most are from Flickr pools – and not even featured on Google’s pages. Many fascinating pictures – and great photographers who captured these scenes! Drummond between Deer Lodge and Missoula. One of the few stops on the Rockies division to retain semaphore signals. Source:…

  • I thought I’d do a gallery of Milwaukee Road scenes! Most are from Flickr pools – and not even featured on Google’s pages. Many fascinating pictures – and some very lucky guys who captured these scenes! The eastern terminus of the 438 miles of electrification at Harlowton. Large marshalling yards and locomotive depots were found…

  • We continue with our investigations into what could be said to be the ‘public sphere’ or perhaps the British consciousness in terms of its railways. The grand modernisation schemes and rationalisations of the sixties and seventies were really nothing more than contrived schemes to give the motorist a better deal. And its how we ended…

  • This looks at further examples of British railway’s 4xD policy. That is Demote, Deconstruct, Dereliction and Destruction. I made that up but what it means is first a station was usually demoted. Services downgraded to the most basic. Then the track layout would be deconstructed, usually to a single platform at the far end of…

  • The good old British railway system! One of the fighter points for the UK’s successful tinpot railway system were its termini. Who needed grand stations with a judicious choice of platforms and stupendous station buildings when a bus stop thingy could do better? Better still – why not push the railway buffers further back and…

  • This is a post examining the long held refutation that double deck trains simply cannot be used on our gloriously tinpot railway systems. This is the second part of a response I have made claim in regards to a Twitter thread on the subject – and that tweet was yet another refutation the UK could…

  • A few weeks back I had written draft posts with the title Tinpot Railways – these being about the huge disbenefits of Britain’s railways and the backwards culture that is promulgated – it critically examined the role of our railways in new and unthought of ways. By way of my research I know Japan’s railways quite well…

  • This is the fourth part of the Milwaukee’s electrified Rockies route through Montana towards Eastern Idaho. Many questioned the choice of route especially as it served few places and paralleled other railroads. Compared to the other railroads’ attempts through this part of the States the Milwaukee’s route involved the traverse of two additional mountain ranges!…

  • This is the third part of the Milwaukee’s electrified Rockies route through Montana towards Eastern Idaho. The company’s choice of route was questioned especially as it paralleled other railroads. These outlasted the later Milwaukee company because they were in a rather better position strategically, financially in terms of routeing and station locations and a wider…

  • This is the second part of a look at whats left of the railroad’s 440 mile route through the Rockies and covers the section from Butte to Missoula. The line follows the Clark Fork River for most of the way (as it does in fact all the way to St Regis.) It looks a fairly…