| Posted by on September 8, 2014 | |
What horrible trackage there! It's inconceivable that any railroad today would be saddled with horrible trackage or management that the Milwaukee Road had for much of its life, and its downfall may have started way back in 1900. The Milwaukee should have listened to James J. Hill around the turn of the 20th century when he wanted an eastern connection to Chicago from his Great Northern Railway, but no ... it wanted to remain independent because it may have gotten afraid of being taken over by Eastern capitalists. And so the Milwaukee Road became increasingly inferior to that of its competitors. Then throw in the decision to build a Pacific Extension to the Northwest often within sight of the Northern Pacific and a 656-mile electrification while the Panama Canal was in progress, and then three bankruptcies within a 50-year period, and you can plainly see why the Milwaukee Road was doomed almost from the very beginning.
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| Posted by SES on April 18, 2022 | |
Not sure who wrote the above comment but figure I'd respond even though it's almost eight years later. I would somewhat agree with you on some of these points except for one major key. The ICC gave the Milwaukee Road ample opportunity for success with the Burlington Northern merger in 1970. 11 gateways and a major share of the container traffic at Seattle. Although the Milwaukee infrastructure was in the beginning stages of getting shaky, had management kept up mainenance, there's a chance they could have gotten ahead of the competition or at least kept up. But instead, management continued to curtail maintenance sharply and also failed to make sound decisions that would keep their customers. It was obvious to many that management went out of their way to destroy the company in the 1970's. What's even more odd is several executives were hired on in the 1970's who came directly from recently formed Burlington Northern. Oddly enough, at the very time these execs came on board, things really started taking a dive. The 1977 bankruptcy and reorganization really make strong evidence of sabotage as the trustee discovered in 1978 after 2 audits that expenditures were double charged for the Pacific Extension. Had they been entered correctly, a small profit would have been reflected despite the two daily transcontinental trains they were down to by the mid 1970's. But alas, it was too late as the trustee had already dropped the gavel on the decision to embargo lines west. So the argument continues- did the Milwaukee suffer corporate sabotage or was management trying to hurry the inevitable. Those who worked for the railroad and those who lived nearby would choose the sabotage route.
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