>>1234286>I would guess it is a colourised picture from 19th cetury if it wasn't for the electric traction, really looks weirdly fascinating and super poor at the same time. Like it makes you realize why they abandoned it.I get that, and one issue was that MILW management had been trying to merge into another line since the mid-1960s, (first UP and then RI if I remember correctly) and accordingly almost religiously deferred maintenance from that point onward. So it was clearly a corporate policy to defer maintenance, and this was true across the whole system.
HOWEVER, in 1972 GE (and several times earlier) offered a very generous proposal to modernize the entire electrified sections AND construct 200 new miles of electrified rail, with very attractive financing. They were directly competing for locomotive sales with EMD (MILW was buying SD40s in large quantities) at the time so there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the proposal. The fact that this proposal was rejected demonstrates that it wasn't simply mere market conditions that determined the fate of the electrified sections, corporate decisions at the top sealed the fate of the line, by design.
There are multiple documents dealing with these studies here:
http://www.milwaukeeroadarchives.com/Electrification/ElectrificationPage1.htmPic related has the fuller story. There were multiple points at which electrification could have been expanded and improved, and top management rejected them every time, despite the recommendations of superintendents and engineers on the ground. They had made their mind up to sink the system and nothing would change their mind about the ultimate outcome.