Milwaukee Road Vendome Loop (MT): Horseshoe, Grades & Pipestone Approach

Last revised: September 1, 2026

Vendome Loop is the long horseshoe on the Milwaukee Road’s Pacific Extension between the stations of Vendome and Cedric, Montana. Westbounds left the Jefferson River valley at Piedmont and started the 2 percent climb toward the Continental Divide. Located on the east slope of Pipestone Pass the loop is how the railroad gained elevation without a steeper hill. Photographers who stood above Cedric could see the head end coming around the far leg while the caboose was still on the near one. That view died with Lines West in 1980.

Milwaukee Road eastbound freight 263 Little Joes Vendome Loop near Cedric Montana June 22 1959 Ron Nixon

Milwaukee Road eastbound freight 263 descends Vendome Loop near Cedric, Montana, June 22, 1959. Two Little Joes are on the far leg of the horseshoe. Ron Nixon photo, Museum of the Rockies collection.

On this page: At a glance · Where it is · How it was built · Grades · Electrics · Last spikes (not Garrison) · What is left

At a Glance

Item	Detail
What it is	Horseshoe curve on the Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension, east slope of Pipestone Pass
Between stations	Vendome and Cedric, Montana (west of Piedmont, east of Grace / Donald / the tunnel)
Purpose	Gain elevation on a 2% compensated grade after the line left the Jefferson River valley
Not	Pipestone Pass Tunnel (No. 11, MP 1505.5, 2,290 ft, summit 6,347 ft). That is farther west
ICC section	Montana Valuation Section 3, Lombard to Colorado Junction (about 1.5 miles west of Butte)
East-slope grade	2% (ICC). Trains magazine profile: 2.00% compensated, average about 1.87%
West-slope grade	1.66% (ICC). Profile: 1.66% compensated, average about 1.505%
General contractor	McIntosh Bros. (clearing, grading, bridges, culverts, track). Work sublet
Track over the Divide	Summer 1908 (ICC). Temporary line over the pass until the tunnel was in
First electric over this hill	November 30, 1915, Butte to the east side of Pipestone Pass
Out of service	Lines West embargo, March 1980

Where the loop sits

West from Three Forks the Milwaukee followed the Jefferson River on easy water-grade, close to the Northern Pacific, as far as Piedmont. There the line left the valley and turned into the mountains. The ICC valuation is blunt: between Piedmont and Butte the country is all rough, and the railroad crosses the Continental Divide several miles south of the NP. Vendome is the first named point on that climb. Cedric is the next. The horseshoe is the long curve that connects them. Grace, Donald, Penfield, Janney, and Newcomb continue the 2 percent toward Tunnel 11. Then the west slope drops toward Butte on a 1.66% grade.

The range along the east face of the Rockies at Pipestone Pass is at the north end of the Highland Mountains, south of Butte. A westbound at Vendome is already on 2 percent in open country, ducking Montana Highway 41, before the horseshoe even begins.

Period maps and later condensed profiles treat the loop as on the order of three miles of horseshoe. The ICC Montana 3 narrative does not give a separate loop mileage.

Map of Milwaukee Road Vendome Loop Montana circa 1960

Map of Milwaukee Road’s Vendome Loop, circa 1960. American-Rails.com collection.

How it was built

Reconnaissance along the Missouri and Jefferson and across the Divide to Butte was in the fall of 1904. Three survey parties went out in January 1906 between Three Forks and Butte and worked into August. Another party ran Three Forks east to Lombard in the winter of 1907–08. The ICC notes many trial lines; a lot of contour and projection work was thrown away before the adopted route was staked.

McIntosh Bros. held the general contract on this section: clearing, grubbing, grading, bridges, culverts, and track. They sublet, and some of those firms sublet again. Orman & Crook grading camps between Butte and the Jefferson in 1906–07 belong in that subcontract world; they are not a substitute for McIntosh on the ICC sheet. Piedmont was the delivery point for east-slope work, Butte for the west slope. Material came off the Northern Pacific and went in by team on contractor wagon roads.

West of Piedmont the cuts were disintegrated granite and solid rock. The valuation says the granite was extremely hard to handle and that a large amount of powder went into the section. June 1908 floods on the Jefferson and Madison washed out newly completed embankments and parts of the river bridges near Three Forks, requiring company forces and work trains to rebuild the grading here. To get steel and tunnel material into the mountains, grading east from Butte and temporary timber trestles were required. A temporary line ran over Pipestone Pass until Tunnel 11 was ready. Nineteen long, high timber trestles between Colorado Junction and Cedric were later filled by contract and company forces.

Track: a consolidation locomotive went to Butte in June 1907 for laying and general use. McIntosh laid rail with a Roberts Bros. machine, starting from Butte early in 1907 and from Piedmont that fall. Rails finally went over the Divide in the summer of 1908. Lombard–Piedmont was laid January–July 1908 with mainline steel initially consisting of 85 and 90 pound rail. Ballast pits included one at Vendome, plus Barron, Lime Spur, and Janney.

Tunnels on the section are Nos. 10, 11, 12, and 13, drilled under contract in 1907–08. No. 11 is Pipestone Pass (McIntosh Bros). No. 10 faced its own issues during construction, caving during the project which cost extra for retimbering. Concrete lining came later by company forces.

Grades, helpers, and what you saw

According to the ICC's numbers, Vendome's east slope was a manageable 2 percent grade while the west slope was an even easier 1.66 percent grade. The Trains magazine northern-transcontinental profile (railroad elevations) lists the same compensated maxima and slightly easier averages. That is a good mountain railroad, not a 4 percent NP-style crawl, but it is still a helper hill. Piedmont had a two-stall engine house while Butte Yard had four stalls for the helpers that worked the mountain. Combination depots went up at Three Forks and Piedmont; smaller operator depots at the lesser stations.

Westbound freights climbed through the loop while eastbound freight—time freights such as 263 in the Nixon photograph—came down it. After electrification, the sight that stuck in people’s minds was a long train wrapping the horseshoe: motors on one leg, caboose still on the other. You needed a landowner’s permission and a steep walk to get such photos, such as the one featured here.

Milwaukee Road Little Joe E-70 GP40 2060 eastbound Vendome Loop Montana September 7 1973 Margret Lewis

Milwaukee Road Little Joe E-70 and GP40 2060 (class 30-ERS-6) with an eastbound freight on the Vendome Loop, September 7, 1973, in late-summer snow, headed toward Three Forks. Margret Lewis photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Wire on the hill

This segment was electrified at 3,000 volts DC with substation located at Eustis, Piedmont, and Janney, fed at 100,000 volts AC from Montana Power’s Great Falls plant and converted to 3,000 volts DC for the trolley. The first main-line electric move on the hill was November 30, 1915, Butte to the east side of Pipestone Pass—six years after through freight, not ten. Boxcabs, then Little Joes, owned this grade until the Rocky Mountain electrification shut down in June 1974. After that, diesels took the 2 percent until the embargo.

Two last spikes, and no Promontory at Garrison

The Pacific Extension was authorized in 1905, estimated at $60 million after an earlier $45 million survey figure. Those are board estimates. Built cost, especially with electrification, ran far higher; this site’s Pacific Extension page uses on the order of $250 million all-in.

Construction began in 1906. Mobridge–Butte was in operation by September 1908 (Putnam’s, 1909, in Sol’s collection). The last rail on the transcontinental was driven March 29, 1909, about two miles east of Missoula in Hellgate Canyon—no golden spike, no speeches, a locomotive whistle. Engineering News-Record recorded it that way. A second, more formal last-spike event followed on May 19, 1909, near Gold Creek, about four miles west of Garrison (Sol’s last-spike file: a quarter-mile east of Milwaukee MP 1578). Chief Engineer E.J. Pearson is in the photograph. That is not the same as “a golden spike at Garrison.” Northern Pacific’s 1883 spike was also in the Gold Creek country; mixing the two ceremonies is how the Garrison story grew. Through freight is dated July 4, 1909; through passenger July 10, 1910.

What is left

Lines West was embargoed in March 1980. The grade is still readable from the air and, in pieces, on the ground. It is not a maintained park loop. Much of it is private land. The filled trestles, the Highway 41 underpass at Vendome, and the scar of the horseshoe between Vendome and Cedric are what remain of the engineering. Thompson Park’s Milwaukee trestle west of Butte is a different structure on the west slope, not the loop. If you go, treat it as abandoned railroad on mixed ownership, and always be sure to receive permission before venturing.

Sources

Interstate Commerce Commission valuation narrative, Montana Section 3 (Lombard–Colorado Junction), in Michael Sol, Milwaukee Road Archives: 1904 recon; 1906 surveys; 2% / 1.66%; McIntosh Bros.; temporary line over Pipestone Pass; 19 timber trestles Colorado Junction–Cedric; Tunnel 11; track over the Divide summer 1908; ballast pit at Vendome; substations Eustis, Piedmont, Janney
Sol, last-spike file (Book.b5g): Missoula last rail March 29, 1909; Gold Creek / west of Garrison ceremony May 19, 1909
Elliott Flower, “Opening Up the Northwest,” Putnam’s Magazine, July 1909 (Sol collection): begun April 15, 1906; Mobridge–Butte September 1908; last rail March 29, 1909; no golden spike at the Missoula joining
Trains magazine northern transcontinental grade profile: Pipestone Pass 6,347 ft; 2.00% compensated east, 1.66% west; stations including (Vendome) and Cedric
Montana railroad chronology (mmrh.org): first main-line electric, Butte to east side of Pipestone Pass, November 30, 1915
American-Rails.com, Pacific Extension (/pce.html): estimates vs. all-in cost; July 4, 1909 freight; July 10, 1910 passenger