User Guide

MICROSOFT TRAIN SIMULATOR ENGINEER’S HANDBOOK
THE ROUTES | 76
MARIAS PASS
Location: Montana, USA
Route length: 152 miles (245 km)
Railroad: The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company (BNSF)
Preferred Player-drivable locomotive: Dash 9 and GP38-2 diesel-electric locomotives
Computer-controlled locomotives and trains on route: Genesis P40 (AMD 103) Empire Builder,
SD40-2, GP38-2
Just as Europeans spent years looking for a Northwest Passage around North America to get their
ships to Asia faster, so the American railroads searched for a suitable pass over the Rocky Mountains
in the northwest United States to move freight faster from east to west. The Marias River in Montana
had been named by Meriwether Lewis in 1806, but the pass was not discovered until 1889, by John
Stevens, an engineer working for the Great Northern Railway. Marias Pass is the lowest pass through
the Rocky Mountains in the United States north of New Mexico.
Today, the rail line through Marias Pass is operated by the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway
(BNSF), which uses the route to run priority intermodal trains, coal, and general freight across the
country from Chicago to Seattle and Portland. Amtrak also uses the route to host their twice-daily
Empire Builder passenger service.
Microsoft
®
Train Simulator includes the mainline portion of the route from Shelby to Whitefish, and
the branch line from Columbia Falls to Kalispell. You can haul freight over the pass, skirting the
southern border of Glacier National Park, or make local freight deliveries along the Kalispell line.