The Unremarked Mountain
When people think of the MRL, they think of mountains. They think of Bozeman Pass and Mullan Pass. They don't often think about Winston Hill. A true definition of "Big Sky Country", Winston Hill is the last stand between a crew and the hotel in Helena, a true slog that has overheated many a DC locomotive. Beginning at Townsend, the hill quite literally climbs straight up out of town. Seemingly lasting forever at 11 miles in length, for the last 8 miles the hill never dips below a .9% grade. At best, you'll have an hour long crawl up the hill, at worst you'll stall out. The train pictured here stalled out just before reaching East Winston. Looking into the distance, we see the Helena Local has attached themselves to the headend of the train and are now pulling hard to drag the train into the siding. Fitting an NP GP9 and BN SD45 are the reason this train made it into town.
The Unremarked Mountain
When people think of the MRL, they think of mountains. They think of Bozeman Pass and Mullan Pass. They don't often think about Winston Hill. A true definition of "Big Sky Country", Winston Hill is the last stand between a crew and the hotel in Helena, a true slog that has overheated many a DC locomotive. Beginning at Townsend, the hill quite literally climbs straight up out of town. Seemingly lasting forever at 11 miles in length, for the last 8 miles the hill never dips below a .9% grade. At best, you'll have an hour long crawl up the hill, at worst you'll stall out. The train pictured here stalled out just before reaching East Winston. Looking into the distance, we see the Helena Local has attached themselves to the headend of the train and are now pulling hard to drag the train into the siding. Fitting an NP GP9 and BN SD45 are the reason this train made it into town.