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For selected operating days the modern Clearwater Terminal is put back in time to a golden age of railroading. It's in a seven year time span when what is old now is new again. Plain bearings, rooftop walkways, high hand brakes and the chant of two cycle engines fill the Swan Valley. It's a nostalgic shift that requires work on the players part. Our paperwork changes, industries shrink and we're slowing down even more. Welcome to the Milwaukee Road Clearwater Subdivision, or the Clearwater, Seeley Lake & Pacific if you're local.
During this time period the 22nd Subdivision of the Milwaukee Road boasts its own switcher, yard and crew. Approximately a dozen people keep the daily trains moving. Milwaukee Road traffic from Missoula via the Big Blackfoot comes up twice a week. The Clearwater crew spends the next five days ensuring that the inbound traffic is worked and that outbound traffic is ready for pick up. Great Northern traffic is dealt with on Fridays unless circumstances dictate otherwise.
Branch Traffic
Branch Traffic
Traffic is daily but the traffic levels very greatly. There are three jobs a day and very rarely are all of them run. Following the Milwaukee road interchange on Monday's and Wednesdays the Morning Tramp Job gets the day rolling. Classifying the yard and servicing the industries in Clearwater. It also prepares for the Seeley Lake Patrol. The Seeley Lake Patrol is the road train. It takes cars from Edmonds Landing to Seeley Lake, works Seeley and returns. That's usually all the work that's done. But if clean up is still necessary the Afternoon Tramp Job sees to it. Usually NW2 #70 works this the Tramps and #435 the Patrol. Traffic varies to a single car a day to dozens of moves at Clearwater and Seeley Lake. It's the variability that the crews like.
Branch Roster
Branch Roster
Dubbed "The MIsfits from Milwaukee" the electic roster on the Clearwater Branch is the result of being at the end of a very long railroad decsion chain. Many of the locomotives have midwestern heritage and are found on the branch because they aren't quite forgotten, somewhere, someone forgot they had been sent to the deep forests of western Montana. Shop Foreman Dan Hernandez and his crew do their best to keep the locmotives in seviciable shape and a bit of pride shows through in their work. Usually when power makes it to the Clearwater withing a few months a Wabco Air Whistle has been installed and the bell changed. This is due to the constant switching in Clearwater and the locals desire for a less strident warning then the single note air horn small locomotives are invariably equpped with. Steam can still be found on the branch in niche roles.
C.M.StP&P Fairbanks-Morse H16-44 #435 - The Milwaukee Road's H16-44 locomotives worked in the eastern part of the system. There they proved rugged and reliable. A junior vice-president in the Rockies wondered if the locomotives could have success in the west. #435 was selected as the test case. Originally numbered #2515 and stationed in and around Milwaukee, WI it arrived in 1959 and was put to work between Clearwater and Seeley Lake. Crews noted the lack of a snowplow but while the engine didn't distinguish itself in any great fashion it was far from a failure. The engine works the branch line with a reliable dependability that crews have come to count on.
C.M.StP&P Fairbanks-Morse H10-44 #732 - One of the older switchers in the west #732 spent a fair amount of it's life working the famed Beer Line in Milwaukee. It was sent west to work the Coeur d'Alene area in Idaho as a shop switcher and general roustabout. It found it's way to Deer Lodge for electrical work and the Missoula foreman saw the engine and shipped it to Clearwater. The #732 holds down the Tramp jobs on the Clearwater Branch. Surefooted and honest the engine is a natural fit for Western Montana.
CSLP EMD NW2 #70 - Don't let the thousand horsepower fool you. #70 is the true workhouse of Clearwater. The residents near Edmonds landing are well used to the growl of the 567 engine as cars are moved around the yard. Built new for a now defunct elevator operation up on the Hi-Line #70 is a common and unremarkable engine. But it starts when asked, never meet a string of cars it couldn't move, and can make it to Seeley Lake and with surprising fuel economy. Just the type of engine the Clearwater Branch needs.
WTCo Alco 0-6-0T #5 - Built in 1922 to an original Alco 1910 design the "Titan of the Timber" makes it home in the Seeley Lake area. Built for the Weyheauser Timber Company in Washington the diminutive saddle tank lokie made it's way east in the early 1950's. Whispered rumors are that the CMO won it in a hand of poker. Others say it was to settle a debt with the company. Either way #5 is known to poke it's smokebox into Clearwater about once a month on a string of log flats. It's known to stick around for a bit and give the water tank something to do.
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