Nostalgia & History > And then there was Great Falls

After the stop in Butte it was off to visit relatives in the Great Falls area. The town we stayed in was called Fort Shaw and was located on the old GN branch line to Augusta which is now long since abandoned.

The first picture is of what I called the most distinctive depot I had ever seen in 1970, especially on a branch line. The CMStP&P depot still stands today looking as good as ever.

The second and third pictures were taken at the yard office at the Great Falls yard. #145 actually was on the local freight to Augusta the day before I took this picture in August of 1970.

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The fourth picture is at the GN/BN Great Falls yard right where the line to Helena splits from the line to Shelby. Ex-GN Big Sky Blue GP9 # 1811 wait for its next assignment.

The fifth picture is the Agawam Local heading across the Missouri River next to the Milwaukee Road Depot with SD7's 500 and 502 leading

The sixth is the same set of power in Falls Yard a couple of days later. (We had just come out of the Charlie Russell Museum). Behind the power in the yard was a FP7...I THINK # 96C but not remembering too clearly right now.

Well that's Great Falls in August of 1970

I hope you have enjoyed these pictures from Montana a lifetime ago !!!

Thanks for looking


Jay

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These are marvelous!

Thanks for sharing.

GRF!

Fascinating pics from an area seldom photographed. Thanks for posting!

Here are two views from September of 2012 at Great Falls, the Milwaukee depot and then the old Milwaukee bridge which still exists and used as a pedestrian bridge:

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I drove around Great Falls a little albeit at night. One of those unique places that looked like it had a surprising amount a rail activity at one time for not being on any major mainline. Seeing stuff at locations like the Milwaukee depot and the SDs on the bridge is brain candy for me.

Jim

I have one more shot from August of 1970

I hope this is not too late for TO readers to enjoy.

Taken from the passenger platform of the GN Depot. It was hard to believe the RDC connection from the Western Star stopped here. In 1965 my bus connection from the Empire Builder in Havre was Bad Ordered so the RDC was how I got to Great Falls. I remember the crew saying just how sorry they were for the incovience(had to wait for an hour) for the RDC to come. I was VERY HAPPY to have ridden the rails between Havre and Great Falls !!!!

I do apologize that I used Kodak Ektacolor HS print film but this was my very first roll of 35mm film and thought EKTA was slide film not color print film. Ektachrome is slide film, Ektacolor was print film and was ASA160. To make things worse, I found out later this film I used was better for "indoor" use.


Jay

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