Customer Reviews

The Milwaukee Road Revisited

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If you've ever lost someone you loved, you know that you treasure the things they loved. Stan Johnson's stepfather worked for the Milwaukee Railroad for 53 years. Johnson felt compelled, a few years ago, to see the old places and right-of-way of the abandoned Milwaukee finding, everywhere he went in Montana, Idaho and Washington, a flood of memories of his youth, railroading, electric locomotives, people, stories, history and a rich tapestry of lives and events that the Milwaukee Road represented through Johnson's beloved stepfather. As Johnson retraces the physical route and structures of the Milwaukee, his memories come alive, and you will read each word with a lump in your throat as Johnson returns to find his stepfather and his railroad.

Johnson has an uncanny way of putting his readers on the Milwaukee Railroad durring its prime. A must read for people who cherish the Milwaukee railroads history on a first hand basis.

I've always heard it is easier to read something when one has a bit of background knowledge about the topic. Perhaps that is why this bock touched me so deeply. Like the author, I had one particular relative whose Milwaukee career spanned 37 years. He wasn't in train service, but his duties as a substation operator provided the "white coal" that propelled the electric locomotives across the Continental Divide and over the other grades on the Rocky Mountain Division. Virtually every summer my parents would pack up the car and drive to whichever substation my uncle was assigned. On rare occasions we travelled by train, but most trips were along the remnants of the Yellowstone Trail and the Mullan Road, at that time called US 10. We began our visits in 1953, at a lonely outpost named Morel, which was 17 miles south (railroad east) of Deer Lodge, Montana. Between that summer and 1974, when the electrification was scrapped, he worked at Morel, Janney, Gold Creek, Ravenna, and Avery, Idaho. On the 1953 trip to Morel I was treated to a short cab ride up and down the passing track as a short work train awaited the westbound Olympian Hiawatha's passing. Other memories include the ear-splitting roar of the motor geneerator sets inside the substation. When no trains were in the vicinity all that could be heard was the hum of the transformers in the closed off back room. Eventually the substations were automated and on our 1959 visit I was allowed to move the toggles which started the M-G sets in adjacent substations 35 miles distant.

It saddened me when the electrified operations ended, but my heart was broken when what has come to be known as the Western Extension of the railroad died six years later. Like Mr. Johnson, I've walked and biked the grade; I've toured it in cars and small buses. I even worked for the Milwaukee on a couple of occasions. At least to me, there is something very special about the Milwaukee. Stan Johnson has kept the memories alive.

A touching story of a warm father-son relationship centered around a shared love of the Milwaukee Road. The details of the placed remembered are vivid and bring me back to when I lived in that area and drove the highways that parallel the old right of way. For those of us who got to go to work with their Dads, this is a special book. You'll love it!