four F45s. While many stayed close to home rails — primarily pushing freight over Mullan and Bozeman passes on the old Northern Pacific — some roamed the country on lease to BN (and later BNSF), Norfolk Southern, Kansas City Southern, and the Indiana Rail Road. Many also appeared on MRL’s short- lived sister road I&M Rail Link. BNSF was the largest user of MRL power and between August 2003 and January 2007 it used as many as 48 MRL locomotives. The engines made it as far as southern California on occasion, but usually re- mained on BNSF’s northern tier so the locomotives could easily return to MRL’s Livingston Shops for maintenance. Sixteen brand-new SD70ACes joined the roster in 2005 and pushed many of the SD45s and SD45-2s into the dead storage line in Livingston. The follow- ing year, MRL began to slowly sell or scrap the locomotives a few at a time. By 2013, as MRL began to purchase more
OPPOSITE: On September 6, 2014, Montana Rail Link No. 382 leads a train along the Clark Fork River near Quinns, Mont. No. 382 started its life on the Seaboard Coast Line. TOP: On April 20, 2014, MRL SD45-2 No. 329 leads BNSF Railway train H-KCKSPO1-13 near Alberton, Mont., on the railroad’s 4th Subdivision. No. 329 was originally Southern Pacific No. 8878. ABOVE: No. 346 began life as Norfolk & Western 1779 in May 1970 and was purchased by MRL in 1997. It is seen leading a westbound manifest at Plains, Mont., on Nov. 23, 2014.
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