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Lewistown Newspaper Index
BA&P-CB&Q-General
Great Northern Railway
GN & Milwaukee Road
Montana RR & Others

SECTION 2
Marias Pass Info
Title 2
Title 3
Title 4
Title 5

SECTION 3
Title 1
Title 2
Title 3
Title 4
Title 5

SECTION 4
Title 1
Title 2
Title 3
Title 4
Title 5
Title 6

FAQ's
Technical Stuff 

LINK to
Montana Railroad
History Web Site

    Marias Pass in the Montana Rockies has a long and interesting history.
The Great Northern Railway built through the area in the 1890’s and named many of the locations along the rail line. The list below is a compilation of the Great Northern names and associated mileposts contrasted with the current [2002] Burlington Northern Santa Fe names and mileposts. Through the years many of the locations have had two or three names assigned by the railroad and these names are not to be confused with United States Post Offices along the line. Many times the US Post Office and railroad had conflicting names for the same location. This list only addresses the names used by the railroads.

Below is the;
Marias Pass  GN/BNSF Milepost List
Adobe Acrobat® Version Marias Pass  GN/BNSF Milepost List
Online Version of Marias Pass from Essential Railfan's Guide to Marias Pass
 

HOW TO READ THE LIST:
The left BLUE column is the actual Great Northern Railway milepost location.
[miles are counted west from St. Paul, Minnesota]

The GREEN column is the current [2002] Burlington Northern Santa Fe milepost location. The BNSF milepost number may vary from the original GN milepost because of line relocations are other reasons – a “railroad mile” may or may not be 5,280’ feet in length, the “miles’ vary either shorter or longer than 5,280 feet to conform with rail location for maintenance purposes, not to specify exact distance locations. [NOTE; many railroads now use a “CP – Control Point” number for location markers as these don’t have to relate to any actual distance]

The PINK column is the list of current names [Black Letters] and locations [Dark Red Italic Letters] between Whitefish, Montana and Browning, Montana, which includes all of Marias Pass. Most of the trackside tunnels, snowsheds and major bridges are listed here.

The PURPLE column on the right lists former names of stations and structures in relation to other station locations along the line. The small font names are former names of stations, the all-larger font capital letter names are locations that still exist, with the locations in bold italics being old Great Northern structures [tunnels, bridges, snowsheds] and their relation to GN and BNSF locations.       

The sources in this guide are listed at the end of the chart. For more information on Marias Pass name changes see my Great Northern Railway name change list at www.montanarailroadhistory.info   

Below are links to information concerning Marias Pass: 

                     Great Northern/BNSF Marias Pass Mileposts

SOURCES:
Altamont Press, “Mountain Plains Region Timetable – Montana, Wyoming & Nebraska” various years - published by Altamont Press, Modesto, CA

Burlington Northern Santa Fe, “Montana Division - Employee Timetable #3, April 18, 1999” published by BNSF, Inc.

Coy, John R. & Del Grosso, Robert C., “Montana’s Marias Pass: Early GN Mileposts and BNSF Guide” published 1996 by Great Northern Pacific Publications, Bonners Ferry, ID 

Great Northern Railway, “1962 Track Profile - Blackfoot, Montana to Whitefish, Montana”   November 1962 St. Paul, MN

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Click below for the -
Adobe Acrobat® Version Marias Pass  GN/BNSF Milepost List

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Below is the web version of the publication published by Dale Jones entitled
"The Essential Railfan's Guide to Marias Pass "
This publication was included in the out-of-print 24-page booklet entitled "Off the Beaten Pass - 30 Years on Marias Pass"
The folder shows all the photo locations and historical information about Marias Pass to assist the railfan enjoy their visit to Marias Pass
NOTE: These are fairly large photos so they may be a bit fuzzy as I had to make the file size that way for you to be able to load them on the web page

Once the photos load they will get small - to enlarge them wiggle the cursor near the bottom right corner - then a little blue/orange box will appear - click on the box to expand the map

                          
                             Marias Pass Track Profile            Marias Pass Map & Locations

_________________________________________________________________________

Please feel free to email me from your email program to: djones@railroads-of-montana.com 

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RECOMMENDED TECHNICAL INFORMATION TO USE THIS SITE

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.
I like Opera because you can load up seven or eight web sites at once and it remembers them every time you open up the browser.
If you are interesting in downloading the Opera browser here is the link:
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Word Viewer:
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If you do not have a .pdf file viewer such as Adobe Acrobat® Viewer, you will absolutely need this;
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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:
Windows Media Player:
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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.
If you find any inaccuracies or have new information you would like to share,
Please feel free to email me from your email program to: djones@railroads-of-montana.com 

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

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