Foggy Morning on the Kalispell Branch
A few recent photos from northwest Montana
BNSF Railway’s Kalispell Local heads north near Evergreen, Mont., after switching a local sawmill on January 16, 2025.
A few weeks ago, I was out running errands with my son when I saw a headlight down the tracks. It was BNSF Railway’s local freight train that runs between Whitefish and Kalispell, Mont. Since the little guy needed to take a nap — and a car ride is always a good way to make that happen — I decided to extend our outing and give chase.
The Kalispell Branch was first put down in the winter of 1891-1892, and at one point was actually part of the Great Northern Railway’s main line to the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately for the city of Kalispell, the rail line west of there was rugged and an operating headache for the GN. In 1904, the railroad rerouted its main line west of Columbia Falls to run through Whitefish instead, meeting up with the original line in Libby. The route between Kalispell and Libby (over Haskell Pass) was abandoned while the 14 miles between Kalispell and Columbia Falls became a branch line.
I first began photographing the Kalispell Branch when I moved to the Flathead Valley in 2011. Back then it was part of the Mission Mountain Railroad, a short line operated by Watco. The railroad in Kalispell itself became the subject of one of my biggest photography projects to date. About a decade ago, the city of Kalispell applied for federal funds to build a rail-served industrial park outside of town and help move two businesses, a grain elevator and a drywall distributor, to it. Once that happened, a few miles of track through downtown were ripped up and replaced with a trail. You can see that project over at KalispellRailroad.com.
In 2020, Watco’s lease of the Kalispell Branch expired and BNSF assumed control of the line. These days, BNSF sends a local out of Whitefish five days a week to serve customers on the line. I hear the local most mornings from my house and because of that, I’ve been able to photograph it quite a bit in recent years (a few years ago, I wrote a cover story for Railfan & Railroad about it).
This most recent foggy morning was particularly appealing for photography because of a frost that made the landscape look like a Christmas card scene. After nabbing a few shots of the train heading north, my son and I headed home to continue our day.
The fog was thick as the train headed north along U.S. Highway 93, not far from Glacier Park International Airport.
The northbound local crosses an old wooden trestle just south of Columbia Falls, Mont. After this, my son and I headed for home.
What else I’m working on…
It’s been a busy few weeks with writing assignments for the various outlets I work with. At the Montana Free Press, I’ve written about students building employee housing for Glacier National Park, the effort to clean up an old aluminum plant not far from where I live, a proposed river management plant for northwest Montana, and a grassroots push to enact tougher DUI laws in Montana.
The new issue of Flathead Living Magazine is out and it includes a profile on Park Provisions, a new business in Coram that is part-restaurant, part-grocery store.
And last, but certainly not least, I have a cover story in this month’s Railfan & Railroad Magazine about BNSF Railway’s passenger car fleet, which includes the first complete roster in almost 20 years. You can read a preview of the story over on Railfan’s website and you can see the entire story in the February issue.
Until next time, thanks for reading!
-Justin