>>987796>the rest of the track had a worse profile compared to GN and NP.Which is why MILW electrified the mountain passes and operating costs under electrification weren't bad considering. Operating costs after de-electrification skyrocketed, which helped management justify abandonment just 6 years later.
It's true that MILW had shitty on-line traffic in the West. But if you consider that most railroad profits were made with longer distance shipments and bridge traffic, the Milwaukee Road's route from the Pacific to Chicago makes sense. Especially after WW2, when shipments to and from the Pacific increased in frequency and tonnage, the Milwaukee Road took a healthy share of that traffic and for awhile was the most profitable road in the PNW. In the 1960s and early 1970s MILW won the majority of trans-Pacific traffic and their success in this respect made the newly formed BN eager to eliminate MILW as a competitor.
