With the collapse of Montana Rail Link’s Yellowstone River Bridge near Reed Point under the weight of MLAUMIS on June 24, 2023, and the subsequent severing of a busy main line, MRL and BNSF had to scramble to accommodate and reroute all the tonnage for as long as it took to rebuild the bridge. BNSF sent its overhead tonnage to different lines, but had trouble using its own trackage to reroute the large Boeing fuselages due to clearance issues, and routes on other railroads were not an option either. Boeing needed these fuselages to keep its 737 assembly line rolling, and not wanting to upset a good customer, BNSF and MRL came up with a creative solution.
With assistance from the Montana Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration, these fuselages bound for Washington state first went west by rail on BNSF and MRL like they normally do, but only to Craver, Montana. There they were offloaded and trucked around the collapsed bridge between Craver and Reed Point on Interstate 90, then reloaded on empty Boeing flats waiting on the other side of the mess. Two large cranes at both sites were used, and once reloaded, these cars were quickly expedited west on MRL’s main line.
Ten minutes after sunset at 9:28 p.m. on July 8, 2023, a trio of Boeing 737 fuselages mounted on flat cars and pulled by a lone Montana Rail Link EMD SD70ACe, curves along the Missouri River through Lombard Canyon east of Toston, Montana. This was MRL’s first movement of fuselages to hit the road—literally.
A continuously growing album of photos that IMHO reveal the awesome and seldom-seen beauty of the railroad world from the dimming of day to dawn's early light! From dusk to dawn, trains roll on! (I'm still finding gems of sunset-to-sunrise surprises!)
