Stryker to Eureka was still hosting through freights until 1970. That year, GN opened the seven mile long Flat- head Tunnel between Whitefish and Libby. The new tunnel, the second longest in the United States, was need- ed because of another realignment, but this time not of GN’s choosing. In 1951, the United States Congress approved the construction of the Libby Dam, located about 50 miles south of United States-Canadian boarder. The dam was built not only to tame the wild and unpredictable Kootenai River, which often flooded communities in Montana, Idaho and British Columbia, but to become a reliable power source for the Northwest, providing enough electricity to power 500,000 homes. Be- hind the dam was the newly formed Lake Koocanusa, which stretched near- ly 90 miles north into Canada and re- quired the town of Rexford and the Great Northern to be relocated. The 60 mile realignment cost nearly $110 mil- lion, nearly a third of the entire dam project’s cost. The new railroad went from Stryker, about 30 miles west of Whitefish, and bore through the Flat- head Range toward Libby. Once the right-of-way from Libby to Eureka was abandoned and inundated with water, the line from Stryker to Eureka became a lonely branch line.


Up until the 2000s, Burlington 44 DECEMBER 2012 • RAILFAN.COM


BRITISH COLUMBIA - CANADA MONTANA - UNITED STATES


93 EUREKA


MAP AREA


MONTANA


Fortine Stryker 37


Flathead Tunnel


to Portland 93 Libby 2 Whitefish to St. Paul COLUMBIA FALLS LaSalle Evergreen 0 KALISPELL 10 MILES 2 93 Mission Mountain Railroad Map illustration by Otto M. Vondrak ©2012 Carstens Publications, Inc. Not an official map. Not all routes and stations shown. 20 2 Olney


AMTK- Amtrak BNSF- BNSF Railway GN- Great Northern MMT- Mission Mountain Railroad


BNSF/AMTK (GN)


MMT (BNSF)


MMT (BNSF)


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