Critics wonder about future of line

Associated Press Writer

BOX ELDER - An 18-mile stretch of railroad track in the heart of Montana's grain country has become a parking place for some 2,000 idle rail cars, a use some people on the state's northern tier find disconcertingly symbolic.

BNSF Railway parked the flatcars on the tracks between Big Sandy and Havre in mid-December and they will remain there into the spring, spokesman Gus Melonas said Monday. BNSF's critics, some in the grain industry, say using the tracks for storage is oddly symbolic of the railroad's desire to have the branch line declared unnecessary for transportati...