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The Great Plains


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I have developed a latent interest in the Great Plains, perhaps as an offshoot of my interest in railroads. 

So let's consider this a catch-all thread for all things related to the Great Plains.  

I have never been to any of the states or provinces that are entirely or partially in the Great Plains.  I have ventured as far west as Chicago, St. Louis, and Minneapolis.  From there, I have been to Seattle, San Francisco, and San Diego.  

So feel free to use this space to share your thoughts, memories, and impressions of the Great Plains.  I am especially interested to hear from folks who live there or who have lived there, or who spent any amount of time there.  

I am also interested in the Plains Native American tribes. 

In terms of reading about the Great Plains, the only things I've read (that I remember) are Willa Cather's My Antonia, and various Native American mythology from Plains tribes. Some of Jim Thompson's novels take place in Plains states also.

I also saw an excellent retrospective of Wright Morris photography when I lived in Beantown.  His work was paired with the photographs of Edward Weston.

Thanks in advance.

 

Edited by Teasing the Korean
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Oh my goodness, how much do you want to talk about this?  I've lived in Saskatoon, Des Moines, and a Minneapolis suburb.  And travel across parts of the big empty nearly every year for most of my life.  The plains are a beautiful and unique place (although if you're talking about the Canadian part, 'prairies' is the preferred term).  And it's not all the same at all, Montana east of the Rockies is a very different place than Iowa.   Aberdeen SK, where my brother lives:

| Tourism Saskatchewan

image.jpeg.117c4381f9f06aec52848c0bdc116348.jpegimage.jpeg.117c4381f9f06aec52848c0bdc116348.jpegimage.jpeg.117c4381f9f06aec52848c0bdc116348.jpeg

Cut Bank - Empire Builder Advocates

The Empire Builder on the trestle just outside Cut Bank MT, you can just see the Rocky Mountain front in the background.  My wife has relatives here, and it's on the way to SK, so I've been there many times.  Also took the Builder through this country coming and going last year.  I've thought about retiring somewhere just east of the front - it's the best of both worlds to me.  Cut Bank, Shelby, Havre on the High Line, all familiar territory.

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7 hours ago, danasgoodstuff said:

Oh my goodness, how much do you want to talk about this? 

As much as you want, but I assume that I will primarily be listening while others are doing the talking!  

And thanks for the great photos and commentary above!

Edited by Teasing the Korean
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Choose From Over A Dozen Flavors Of Pie At Log Cabin Cafe In Montana

Choteau MT, just on the edge of the plains, east of the Rockies, S by SW of Cut Bank.  I've eaten here more than once, homemade pies are excellent, but the best thing is that if you're lucky you can get a parking spot in the shade 'cause it's usually late in the day and hot when I get here.  HaVEN'T BEEN FOR A FEW YEARS, HOPE IT'S STILL THERE.

Wallace Stegner's Wolf Willow is an odd hodgepodge of fiction and fact but gives a good feel for East End SK and the country around their on the east side of the cypress hills.

If you have occasion to drive thru the plains/prairies, I highly recommend taking the time to get off the freeways and go through some smaller towns.

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One of the odd things about the High Line (the communities along US Hwy 2 across the northern tier of MT) is that they still have daily passenger rail service (via the Empire Builder) whereas the more heavily populated southern part of the state has none.  There are those advocating for a return to service on roughly the route of the North Pacific's North Coast Limited.  Even more surprising and appalling to me is that the southern tier of Alberta and Saskatchewan has no passenger rail now.  This was formerly served by the Canadian Pacific and is much more heavily populated than any part of Montana or North Dakota.

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9 hours ago, danasgoodstuff said:

Choteau MT, just on the edge of the plains, east of the Rockies, S by SW of Cut Bank.  I've eaten here more than once, homemade pies are excellent, but the best thing is that if you're lucky you can get a parking spot in the shade 'cause it's usually late in the day and hot when I get here.  HaVEN'T BEEN FOR A FEW YEARS, HOPE IT'S STILL THERE.

So, as someone who has never been to the Pains, that's my cliched impression of this region: that there are no trees, and that you're either baking in the sun half the year or freezing.

9 hours ago, danasgoodstuff said:

One of the odd things about the High Line (the communities along US Hwy 2 across the northern tier of MT) is that they still have daily passenger rail service (via the Empire Builder) whereas the more heavily populated southern part of the state has none.  There are those advocating for a return to service on roughly the route of the North Pacific's North Coast Limited.  Even more surprising and appalling to me is that the southern tier of Alberta and Saskatchewan has no passenger rail now.  This was formerly served by the Canadian Pacific and is much more heavily populated than any part of Montana or North Dakota.

Do the rail lines still exist in those regions where they've cut passenger service?  I assume they are used for freight only?

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5 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

So, as someone who has never been to the Pains, that's my cliched impression of this region: that there are no trees, and that you're either baking in the sun half the year or freezing.

Do the rail lines still exist in those regions where they've cut passenger service?  I assume they are used for freight only?

If we take an expansive view of the Great Plains, it's a very big region with a lot of variation in topography, vegetation, and climate.  But the trees tend to come in scattered clumps, and the weather vacillates between extremes and can change in the blink of an eye.  The CPR mainline between Winnipeg and Calgary, parallel to the Trans Canada Hwy, still exists, as does the route over the Crow's Nest Pass going straight west from Medicine Hat thru Lethbridge and on to Vancouver by way of Cranbrook BC.  Most of the former Northern Pacific RR route thru the southern tier of MT still exists and is used for freight.  Usage patterns have changed due to changes in commodities markets and containerized shipping and rail consolidation since WWII led to the abandonment of a lot of railroad right of way, often with the tracks torn up and sold for scrap due to unenlightened tax policy and the dire financial straits of many RR companies.  For instance, most former Milwaukee Road right of way is now part of the rails to trails program - it was brilliantly engineered but weirdly routed and was definitely one RR too many through the northern states from Chicago to Seattle.  Many western towns large and small have abandoned or repurposed depots but have had no passenger service for decades.  Even where these stations (or a portion of the existing larger buildings) could be put back into service, they would need significant work to serve as modern facilities meeting ADA requirements, etc.  Some towns and cities in the region(s) have grown a great deal in the last 50 years since Amtrak started (or the last 60-70 since the golden age of passenger rail) and many smaller ones have shrunk or stagnated.  And even freight RR use has contracted to only the most profitable lines as the industry struggled to stay afloat in the wake of massive subsidies for its competitors (trucking and air freight).  So many small town grain elevators have been abandoned, which often killed the towns, and which meant the fewer bigger farms truck their grain further to market over the roads which get chewed up more, which is why many formerly paved roads in SK are now gravel, it's easier to maintain and a good gravel road is better than a bad paved one.  Abeerdeen SK where my brother lives is fortunate to still have an elevator, school, and post office, so it's unusual for a town of that size (600 or so) in that it's still growing.  But it's so close to Saskatoon that folks commute from there and it's more convenient for farmers to take their grain there than fight the traffic to take it into Saskatoon (if that's even an option, I'm not sure if it is).  When I lived in SK, wheat dominated the Province's economy and everything else - oil, gas, pothash, livestock, other grains, manufacturing, was secondary.  Now not so much, and Pothash Corp is the 800 lb Gorilla with their name plastered all over cultural events.

There are also significant differences between Canada and the States as far as the geography and cultural place of the plains/prairies in the two countries.  The States have a big swath of intermountain west but in Canada the Rockies are further west and the prairies are separated from the Quebec to Windsor corridor where most Canadians still live by 'northern' (actually western) Ontario which is full of lakes and streams and forest and much emptier than the prairies.

 

http://www.on-top.ca/Outings/2021/images/2021-06-27%20Big%20Bend%20Peak/Story%20Checks%20Out.jpg

Prairie humour. 

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18 hours ago, danasgoodstuff said:

If we take an expansive view of the Great Plains, it's a very big region with a lot of variation in topography, vegetation, and climate.  But the trees tend to come in scattered clumps, and the weather vacillates between extremes and can change in the blink of an eye.  The CPR mainline between Winnipeg and Calgary, parallel to the Trans Canada Hwy, still exists, as does the route over the Crow's Nest Pass going straight west from Medicine Hat thru Lethbridge and on to Vancouver by way of Cranbrook BC.  Most of the former Northern Pacific RR route thru the southern tier of MT still exists and is used for freight.  Usage patterns have changed due to changes in commodities markets and containerized shipping and rail consolidation since WWII led to the abandonment of a lot of railroad right of way, often with the tracks torn up and sold for scrap due to unenlightened tax policy and the dire financial straits of many RR companies.  For instance, most former Milwaukee Road right of way is now part of the rails to trails program - it was brilliantly engineered but weirdly routed and was definitely one RR too many through the northern states from Chicago to Seattle.  Many western towns large and small have abandoned or repurposed depots but have had no passenger service for decades.  Even where these stations (or a portion of the existing larger buildings) could be put back into service, they would need significant work to serve as modern facilities meeting ADA requirements, etc.  Some towns and cities in the region(s) have grown a great deal in the last 50 years since Amtrak started (or the last 60-70 since the golden age of passenger rail) and many smaller ones have shrunk or stagnated.  And even freight RR use has contracted to only the most profitable lines as the industry struggled to stay afloat in the wake of massive subsidies for its competitors (trucking and air freight).  So many small town grain elevators have been abandoned, which often killed the towns, and which meant the fewer bigger farms truck their grain further to market over the roads which get chewed up more, which is why many formerly paved roads in SK are now gravel, it's easier to maintain and a good gravel road is better than a bad paved one.  Abeerdeen SK where my brother lives is fortunate to still have an elevator, school, and post office, so it's unusual for a town of that size (600 or so) in that it's still growing.  But it's so close to Saskatoon that folks commute from there and it's more convenient for farmers to take their grain there than fight the traffic to take it into Saskatoon (if that's even an option, I'm not sure if it is).  When I lived in SK, wheat dominated the Province's economy and everything else - oil, gas, pothash, livestock, other grains, manufacturing, was secondary.  Now not so much, and Pothash Corp is the 800 lb Gorilla with their name plastered all over cultural events.

There are also significant differences between Canada and the States as far as the geography and cultural place of the plains/prairies in the two countries.  The States have a big swath of intermountain west but in Canada the Rockies are further west and the prairies are separated from the Quebec to Windsor corridor where most Canadians still live by 'northern' (actually western) Ontario which is full of lakes and streams and forest and much emptier than the prairies.

Great detail, thank you!

I have read that one of the reasons Amtrak struggles in the US is that it still relies on old routes that do not take into account migration patterns and business/industrial shifts over the last hundred years or so.

 

On 3/13/2023 at 4:48 PM, BillF said:

When you mentioned The Great Plains, I thought immediately of a Willa Cather novel I read about 25 years ago. I think it must have been O Pioneers! My abiding memory is of the extreme hardship suffered by the early settlers.

My Antonia has a lot of that also.  It must have really given people a true sense of purpose when a successful harvest literally meant the difference between life and death.  If the crops failed, you couldn't go to the 7-11 for a bag of Doritos.

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8 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Great detail, thank you!

I have read that one of the reasons Amtrak struggles in the US is that it still relies on old routes that do not take into account migration patterns and business/industrial shifts over the last hundred years or so.

 

My Antonia has a lot of that also.  It must have really given people a true sense of purpose when a successful harvest literally meant the difference between life and death.  If the crops failed, you couldn't go to the 7-11 for a bag of Doritos.

There are a lot of reasons why Amtrak has struggled but still managed to survive 50+ years now.  I've been in full rail fan mode for a couple of years, but I'll try to keep it short.  Geography, historic routes and who ran them, who merged with whom and kept which lines and service on them, who joined Amtrak when it formed and who chose not to (the Rock Island not joining initially is why Des Moines has no service and Amtrak goes across Iowa to its south), and the fact that Amtrak happened at least 10 years later than it should have.  By 1958 at the latest it was obvious that passenger rail in America was in serious trouble.  Even if Amtrak got everything that it has proposed, we'd have good service in a few heavily populated corridors, with some adjustments for where folks live now, but in much of the country it would be a bare skeleton. Even if we got the significantly more service that the Rail Passengers Association and other local groups have proposed (which would take time, hard work and massive $), we'd still be short of the service that existed in 1962 when the private companies were hemorrhaging $ and the mass abandonment of service and rail lines had already begun.  Demographic shifts don't necessarily help - some places have grown, some shrunk, some are older, some industries and other things have changed, and only some cities still have usable depots downtown or even anywhere they could reasonably be built - where rails and row still exist they are configured to serve freight mostly and even seemingly little things like lack of a crossover track to get to the platform or exit in the right direction or turn around for a return trip, these can all be expensive to fix.  And if we want true high-speed rail, that need dedicated and very expensive track.  Amtrak's current focus is on more service and more reliable, split between new destinations (Mobile will probably happen this year) and more frequency (a second train from Chicago to the Twin cities will probably happen, maybe this year).  And maybe bump the max up to 90mph and fix the worst bottle necks - if you want a quicker trip, fix the slowest parts first.  Oh, and to keep it in the plains, Denver will likely get a north-south route going from Cheyenne to Pueblo, which could connect to enhanced long distance service.  If there is to be a genuine passenger rail revival, it will be much more day trains <500 miles than long distance, although even the 2 day trains in the west serve a lot of shorter partial route trips.

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2 hours ago, danasgoodstuff said:

There are a lot of reasons why Amtrak has struggled but still managed to survive 50+ years now.  I've been in full rail fan mode for a couple of years, but I'll try to keep it short.  Geography, historic routes and who ran them, who merged with whom and kept which lines and service on them, who joined Amtrak when it formed and who chose not to (the Rock Island not joining initially is why Des Moines has no service and Amtrak goes across Iowa to its south), and the fact that Amtrak happened at least 10 years later than it should have.  By 1958 at the latest it was obvious that passenger rail in America was in serious trouble.  Even if Amtrak got everything that it has proposed, we'd have good service in a few heavily populated corridors, with some adjustments for where folks live now, but in much of the country it would be a bare skeleton. Even if we got the significantly more service that the Rail Passengers Association and other local groups have proposed (which would take time, hard work and massive $), we'd still be short of the service that existed in 1962 when the private companies were hemorrhaging $ and the mass abandonment of service and rail lines had already begun.  Demographic shifts don't necessarily help - some places have grown, some shrunk, some are older, some industries and other things have changed, and only some cities still have usable depots downtown or even anywhere they could reasonably be built - where rails and row still exist they are configured to serve freight mostly and even seemingly little things like lack of a crossover track to get to the platform or exit in the right direction or turn around for a return trip, these can all be expensive to fix.  And if we want true high-speed rail, that need dedicated and very expensive track.  Amtrak's current focus is on more service and more reliable, split between new destinations (Mobile will probably happen this year) and more frequency (a second train from Chicago to the Twin cities will probably happen, maybe this year).  And maybe bump the max up to 90mph and fix the worst bottle necks - if you want a quicker trip, fix the slowest parts first.  Oh, and to keep it in the plains, Denver will likely get a north-south route going from Cheyenne to Pueblo, which could connect to enhanced long distance service.  If there is to be a genuine passenger rail revival, it will be much more day trains <500 miles than long distance, although even the 2 day trains in the west serve a lot of shorter partial route trips.

I long for the days of glamorous rail travel, but there is no way that today's economy could ever support that.  I'll have to be content reading accounts from All Aboard with E.M. Frimbo, a book you may know about as a railfan.

When I started getting back into model trains as an adult, after decades of being away from them, I was fascinated to read about all the mergers.  I wanted to be sure I was using period-appropriate cars, both in terms of railroad names, logos, and car designs.  Box cars with waffle doors and no walkways on the roof are too new for my era.  My beloved Baltimore and Ohio became part of the Chessie Sytem, and then CSX.

In my first post, I mentioned that my fascination with the Great Plains may be an offshoot of my interest in railroads, but I think it is much more than that.  Although, I do love finding pix online of long freight trains dividing infinite prairie.

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Great pics. That´s some places I have not been there, 
But traveling with train has been a part of my live here in Europe-Eastern Europe. For many years I had to travel each month about 1000 km crossing two borderlines to have at least 3,4 days with my family.
I remember once two guys from California were doing that "adventure" of traveling east and it was completly unusual or unknown to them that they wake you up in the night for passport control and luggage control and nobody spoke English. They always asked me "what´s happenin´ now ???" I think I remember they wanted to visit the "Dracula Castle" 🤣

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