 Railroads of Montana
and thePhotography of Dale Jones |
||
|
Lewistown Newspaper Index SECTION 3 SECTION 4
LINK to
|
   Burlington Northern along Flathead River Empire Builder in Bad Rock Canyon Amtrak crossing Middle Fork of Flathead River Marias Pass Marias Pass – the long lost “mysterious” crossing of the Continental Divide located in northwestern Montana near Kalispell and Glacier National Park. In this portion of the website, we will explore the myths surrounding Marias Pass and its discovery along with the railroads that operated through the pass including the Great Northern Railway, Burlington Northern and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroads. In discussing Marias Pass, we will be covering basically the approximately 95 miles of track between Whitefish and Browning, Montana. In the almost 100 miles of trackage in Marias Pass, the rails snake through narrow canyons, cross the swift Middle Fork of the Flathead River, twist through numerous snowsheds and tunnels on its way to the summit at 5,213 feet above sea level. As Rocky Mountain railroad passes go, Marias Pass is one of the lowest crossings in actual elevation of any of the major railroad passes in North America. It was always a dream of mine to photograph the Great Northern Railway in Marias Pass, unfortunately I wasn’t able to fulfill that dream until 1985 when I moved to Essex to work for a while as a chef for Larry and Linda Vielleux at the Izaak Walton Inn. Of course by then, the Burlington Northern Railroad had taken over running the trains, but the landscape and the problems of getting all those rail cars up and down the mountain remained the same. Since that time I have walked literally every mile of the 95 miles of Marias Pass taking photographs documenting the trains and landscape of Marias Pass/Glacier National Park. I will be sharing some of those photographs and memories here on this website. Below are links to
information concerning Marias Pass: Please feel free to email me from your email program to: djones@railroads-of-montana.com
_________________________________________________________________________
_ BASIC COMPUTER SKILLS: Even though this website is not necessarily a complicated or technical website, it is understood that the user will have basic computer skills; such as mouse skills, website navigation, email setup and composition, opening and closing files & folders and how to use a printer. I will try to make sure that any instructions are fairly simple, if something in this website is just not working for you, drop me an email and perhaps I can figure out what is wrong - after all, it might be that everyone else is having the same problem with my site and I will need to rectify it. INTERNET CONNECTION: Due to the large size of data and photo files in this site, we recommend using a high speed broadband DSL or cable connection - you can view this site on a regular telephone modem, but it may take a long time for the pages to load. I have tried to keep the files to a reasonable size, but at times it is just not possible to sacrifice quality for speed. INTERNET BROWSER: I use
Microsoft Internet Explorer and Opera 8.x. If you are using ANY
Microsoft products from operating systems to web browsers - make sure
you download ALL of the current service packs and updates, this prevents
nearly all undesirable popups and snoop wear. SOFTWARE: If you do not
have the Microsoft Office® Suite [which includes Word, Excel and others]
you may need to download from Microsoft the following viewers to access
some of the files on this web site; Word Viewer: If you do not have a .pdf file viewer
such as Adobe Acrobat® Viewer, you will absolutely need this; You may also need a Media Player - I
use many but, Windows Media Player® seems to be most compatible with all
file formats that I will be using in this web site: PROBLEMS: This website
was designed on Frontpage® 2002 and was thoroughly tested out before
posting, but sometimes things slip through.... so, if you have any
problems accessing any parts of this website or you find any dead or
changed links to other sites, please let me know. BTW: The reason I ask you to use
your email program is that the automatic email program popup does not work
with my simple .ftp web server :] All material and photos that does not list specific sources are copyrighted by Dale Jones Railroads of Montana Home Montana Railroad History Home Home Lewistown Newspaper Index Marias Pass Info
|