The Mission Mountain Railroad is a shortline railroad in northwestern

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

, operating a segment of the former Great Northern Railway (later

Burlington Northern The Burlington Northern Railroad was a United States–based railroad company formed from a merger of four major U.S. railroads. Burlington Northern operated between 1970 and 1995. Its historical lineage begins in the earliest days of railroad ...

and

BNSF BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that provide ...

) since December 2004. MMT is a subsidiary of

Watco Watco Companies, L.L.C. (Watco) Watco is an American transportation and logistics company based in Pittsburg, Kansas. The company’s core services are freight transportation, material handling and storage, logistics, railcar repair and maintena ...

, operator of several other shortline railroads.

Northern segment

MMT operates 26 miles of track between

Stryker The Stryker is a family of Eight-wheel drive, eight-wheeled armored fighting vehicles derived from the Canadian LAV III. Stryker vehicles are produced by General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada (GDLS-C) for the United States Army in a plant in L ...

, Trego, Fortine, and

Eureka, Montana Eureka is a town in Lincoln County, Montana, United States, south of the Canada–US border. The population was 1,380 at the 2020 census. History Eureka was founded in the early 1880s as settlers moved north from Missoula and south from Cana ...

. From 1904 to 1970, this segment was part of the Great Northern main line, but it became an isolated branch when the

Libby Dam Libby Dam is a concrete gravity dam in the northwestern United States, on the Kootenai River in northwestern Montana. Dedicated on it is west of the continental divide, upstream from the town of Libby. At in height and a length of , Libby D ...

and the

Flathead Tunnel The Flathead Tunnel is a railroad tunnel in the Rocky Mountains of northwest Montana near Trego, approximately west of Whitefish. Located on the BNSF Railway's Kootenai River Subdivision, it is the second-longest railroad tunnel in the U ...

were built. The main business on this segment is bulk lumber to and from Eureka. A new source of business in 2016 was transloading

magnetite Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula . It is one of the iron oxide, oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetism, ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetization, magnetized to become a ...

ore destined for coal mines in southeastern British Columbia onto trucks at Fortine.

Southern segment

Until 30 March 2020, MMT also operated the 14 miles from Columbia Falls to

Kalispell, Montana Kalispell (, Salish-Spokane-Kalispel language, Montana Salish: Ql̓ispé, Kutenai language: Kqayaqawakⱡuʔnam) is a city in Montana and the county seat of Flathead County, Montana, United States. The 2020 census put Kalispell's population at ...

. Originally part of the Great Northern's transcontinental main line, it was rerouted via Whitefish and

Eureka Eureka often refers to: * Eureka (word), a famous exclamation attributed to Archimedes * Eureka effect, the sudden, unexpected realization of the solution to a problem Eureka or Ureka may also refer to: History * Eureka Rebellion, an 1854 g ...

in 1904, avoiding the grades of Haskell Pass west of Kalispell. Farther west and south of Kalispell, the former track toward

Marion Marion or MARION may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Marion (band), a British alternative rock group * ''Marion'' (miniseries), a 1974 miniseries * ''Marion'' (1920 film), an Italian silent film * ''Marion'' (2024 film), a UK short People a ...

and Somers has become the Great Northern Historical Trail. MMT served several lumber facilities and a grain elevator in Kalispell. The city of Kalispell removed the remaining downtown trackage, relocating the railroad to ''Glacier Rail Park'', a new industrial park just north of town; abandoning 2.4 miles of the original route, including the downtown crossing of

US 93 U.S. Route 93 (US 93) is a major north–south U.S. Numbered Highway in the western United States, that connects U.S. Route 60 (US 60) in Wickenburg, Arizona, with British Columbia Highway 93 at the Canadian border (north of ...

reassumed control of the Kalispell Branch as of April 1, 2020.

Rolling stock

MMT uses a variety of equipment formerly used on other Watco shortlines. Some of the equipment has been repainted for MMT; other units remain in their original

Union Pacific The Union Pacific Railroad is a Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United States after BNSF, ...

and

Milwaukee Road The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (CMStP&P), better known as the Milwaukee Road , was a Class I railroad that operated in the Midwestern United States, Midwest and Pacific Northwest, Northwest of the United States from 1847 ...

paint.
locomotive roster
is hosted by TrainWeb.

References

External links

MMT corporate website
{{Watco Montana railroads Watco