Trip Report: August 22 - 28, 2001
by Ted & Sylvia Blishak
MONTANA DAYLIGHT
Day 6. Missoula to Sandpoint
We are surprised to find that many passengers besides ourselves are doing the train round-trip an option called Continental Divide Tour. Yet we recommend this, as nothing looks the same going the other direction and by the third day you're really getting into the spirit of the train experience and making friends with both passengers and crew.
Another advantage to the round-trip tour is that part of the segment from Missoula to Sandpoint is on different track on the return leg. Eastbound we traversed the original NP main line (Main Street of the Northwest) over Evero Pass. On the return trip we took the water level route along the Clark Fork. This route was completed after the Milwaukee Road came through this area. The Clark Fork route is preferred by the freight trains due to its reduced gradient, but is 28 miles longer so the old North Coast Limited utilized Evero Pass.
MONTANA RAIL LINK. Today, a Montana Rail Link employee is enjoying his day off with a ride on our train. Curious about this short-line railroad with its smooth and well-maintained track and heavy freight traffic, Sylvia asks him about his company.
These tracks, formerly belonging to the late Northern Pacific, are not actually owned by MRL but are on a long-term lease which runs until 2040. But MRL functions as the owner, maintaining the line (we met about six maintenance of way vehicles as we spoke) and providing helper engines and crew to the BNSF freights that use the line.
"Fifteen freight trains a day is about average for us," he tells me. "We charge BNSF a flat annual rate with a predicted number of cars to be run over our tracks. They present us with the train including the engines; we put our people in the cab to run it. We do charge them extra for helper engines."
Sylvia remarked that the railroad seemed to display both vitality and prosperity. "Yes, we're doing quite well and BNSF would love to get our tracks back. They've tried to break our lease, but lost in court."
This route begins by paralleling I-90, but then pulls away from this federally funded truck route at St. Regis to continue along the Clark Fork, with only a quiet state highway alongside. By afternoon we are along Lake Pend Oreille (pronounced Ponderay), a beautiful deep blue lake with over one hundred miles of shoreline, before our early afternoon arrival at the terminus in the town of Ponderay. Here a bus awaits to transfer many of the passengers to Spokane to catch their flights back home. Some passengers have driven here to board the train and the bus takes them to their cars. The Sandpoint friends we made on the outbound trip, Jim and Mary Walker, pick us up and drive us to the Quality Inn, where we have a day room until the 11:49 PM departure of the westbound Empire Builder.
The Montana Daylight has provided a delightful trip through what had been, for us, unknown territory. It is sparsely populated, and a true "Wild West" with a great variety of scenery.
