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Like many, I'm always fascinated by trail stuff. Quite a variety of cars here.
Crews laying track for the Great Northern Railway entered the Flathead Valley from what is now West Glacier in 1891, and initially followed a route through Columbia Falls and Kalispell, then west through Idaho and Washington to the Pacific Ocean. But the route west of Kalispell included a difficult climb over the Salish Mountains...a steep and tortuous grade winding slowly up one side, then just as painstakingly down the other.
It wasn’t long before the railroad’s survey team was sent back to Montana, charged with finding a new—and easier—route out of the Flathead Valley. And that’s when the two most important decisions in the small settlement’s short history were made: the decision to re-route the Great Northern Railway north to Eureka before heading west to the coast; and another to locate the railroad’s regional headquarters at the south end of Whitefish Lake.
Crews laying track for the Great Northern Railway entered the Flathead Valley from what is now West Glacier in 1891, and initially followed a route through Columbia Falls and Kalispell, then west through Idaho and Washington to the Pacific Ocean. But the route west of Kalispell included a difficult climb over the Salish Mountains...a steep and tortuous grade winding slowly up one side, then just as painstakingly down the other.
It wasn’t long before the railroad’s survey team was sent back to Montana, charged with finding a new—and easier—route out of the Flathead Valley. And that’s when the two most important decisions in the small settlement’s short history were made: the decision to re-route the Great Northern Railway north to Eureka before heading west to the coast; and another to locate the railroad’s regional headquarters at the south end of Whitefish Lake.