North and South Railway

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The North and South Railway (N&S), now defunct, was an American railroad planned for construction between Casper, Wyoming and Miles City, Montana, via Sheridan, Wyoming. Though substantial portions of the railroad's grade were completed in 1923, only the far southern end of the line was ever completed, and that trackage was abandoned in 1935.

[edit] History

During the first years of the twentieth century, residents of north-central Wyoming and south-central Montana advanced multiple proposals for the construction of a new railway line between Sheridan and Miles City. The proposed route, which generally followed the course of the Tongue River, would access the vast and remote ranching country between the two towns, and would provide Sheridan with a second railway outlet to the east. (The city was already served by a main line of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad.)

Nothing came of this idea, though, until 1923, when Charles N. Haskell, an oilman and former governor of Oklahoma, revived and expanded the proposal, in conjunction with the substantial oilfield development then taking place in the remote country north of Casper. That spring, Haskill organized a corporation called the “North & South Railway," with plans to build a line between Miles City and Casper, via Sheridan -- a distance of approximately 335 miles. The proposed railroad would thus fulfill the dreams of Sheridan's boosters, while simultaneously serving the new Wyoming oil country. Contractors began construction of the N&S in April, 1923, and approximately one-third of the railroad grade was constructed before the railroad’s financing collapsed later that year. Ultimately, only a 41-mile section of railroad at the south end of the proposed line was completed -- between the stations of Illco (near Casper) and Salt Creek. The Salt Creek area, near the town of Midwest, Wyoming and Teapot Dome, was in the heart of the famous Salt Creek Oil Field, among the largest in the country at the time.

The N&S line to Salt Creek operated only until 1935, when it was abandoned. Substantial evidence of the old railroad grade remains visible today, in both Wyoming and Montana.

Interestingly, the never-completed alignment of the N&S in Montana continues to receive attention as a possible rail corridor today – this time by the Tongue River Railroad, a proposed coal-hauling line between the Decker, Montana area and Miles City.

[edit] References

• Robertson, Donald B. (1991). Encyclopedia of Western Railroad History, Volume II: The Mountain States. Dallas: Taylor Publishing Co.. ISBN 0-87833-026-7.