Dead locomotives abound at the Milwaukee Road’s West Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Shops in this 1980 view from the 35th Street Viaduct. Earlier in the year, the bankrupt railroad had ceased operations on nearly 2,000 miles of its Pacific Extension to Tacoma, Washington. With no trains operating west of Miles City, Montana, the road was left with a surplus of power, much of it in poor repair due to years of deferred maintenance. The Soo Line bought the remnants of the Milwaukee Road in 1985 and today none of this once-sprawling shop complex in Milwaukee remains. But on the hill at the top of the photograph still stands the tower of the veterans hospital at Wood, Wisconsin, a National Historic Landmark initially erected to treat Civil War veterans and still in service. Photograph by Ken Burbach, collection of the Center for Railroad Photography & Art, http://www.railphoto-art.org.
