Happy 25th Anniversary MRL! It's hard to believe, but MRL has been running trains in this territory for longer than Burlington Northern did, and in the not so distant future, MRL itself will have outlasted the time BN was around. In a look at the modern MRL, a short eastbound ML (Missoula-Laurel Manifest Freight) rolls along the Missouri River near Lombard. If you look closely, you'll see the lead locomotives have a coating of "Mullan Tunnel Mud" which was common during the messy rehabilitation of Mullan Tunnel.