Montana Winter Blues

The Montana Rail Link is a Class 2 railroad that stretches over 900 miles from Billings Montana to Sandpoint Idaho and Spokane Washington.

The railroad has many challenges in its day to day operations, two of them being Bozeman Pass between Livingston and Bozeman Montana, and MullanPass between Helena and Missoula Montana.

Both passes have tunnels -Bozeman being 919 m and Mullan1044 m.

The MRL connects with the BNSF Railway at both ends of its network and provides a helper service for their enormous grain and coal trains to help battle the two passes.

Helpers can be inserted mid-train or at the end and are assigned to high horsepower SD70ACe locos, with older SD45 and SD40's assisting as necessary.

Winters are tough on the MRL with temperatures regularly dropping to minus 20 degrees C, with heavy snow falls also needing to be contended with.

As a result, winter photography on the MRL is not the domain foryour average railfan, with extraordinary efforts required to "get the shot".

Many roads are closed due to heavy snow, with blizzards, freezing temperatures and ice adding to the treacherous conditions.

New Zealand railfan Michael Adams visited the USA in the winter of 2011 and 2012 and went to great lengths to photograph and film the MRL in action.

This one hour production is a collection of some of the shots he obtained during these trips and features both the BNSF and MRL hauling freight from Livingston to Missoula.