Milwaukee Road

The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, better known as the Milwaukee Road, was a Class I railroad that operated across the Midwest and Northwest of the United States from 1847 until 1986. It began as the Milwaukee and Waukesha Railroad, aiming to connect Milwaukee with the Mississippi River, and grew through mergers into a network through Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota and Michigan. Its Pacific Extension, built from 1906 to 1909, crossed the Rockies and Cascades to reach Seattle and Tacoma but later became a burden. The company ran famous Hiawatha high-speed passenger trains and the Olympian, filed for bankruptcy in 1925, 1935 and 1977, abandoned the Pacific Extension in 1980 and was merged into the Soo Line Railroad on 1 January 1986. Locomotive 261 still runs excursions.