The Milwaukee Road and Its Pacific Extension-A Fulfilled Prophecy

I have always had a fascination with the Milwaukee Road and its extension to the Pacific Northwest.  Although this westward extension across Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho and Washington never became the robust source of traffic that headquarters had hoped, to me, the extension westward was a fulfilled prophecy of reaching the Pacific.
Many railroads in that day had expansive names of cities and regions of America that they never quite reached.  Very successful railroads such as the St. Louis and San Francisco did not venture past the lower Midwest.  Even the Missouri Pacific and the Chicago Rock Island and Pacific only made it as far as west as Denver.
Thus, I admire the Milwaukee Road for its extension to the Pacific.  In the words of William Clark, "Ocean in view, O the Joy."

Seeing My First Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Train at Rapid City, South Dakota

It was exciting for me to see a pair of Iowa, Chicago and Eastern SD40-2 locomotives on the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern in Rapid City, South Dakota in 2010.  I had first drawn Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern in 1992 and had yet to see a locomotive from this family of railroads that I liked so much.

I had just spent the morning at the Alliance, Nebraska BNSF yard.  Under a beautiful blue South Dakota sky, I saw my first Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern train nearly twenty years after drawing my first DM and E locomotive.  What an exciting day.