Great Northern Railway

Former US railway - the country's most northerly - running across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. Beginning life in the 1870s as the St Paul and Pacific, it was renamed the Great Northern in 1890. Its network included one of the longest tunnels in North America, the 13 km/8 mi Cascade Tunnel through the Cascade Range between Scenic and Berne, Washington (built 1926-29).

The Great Northern Railway crossed some of the most beautiful scenery in the US northwest, and was instrumental in promoting the Glacier National Park as a tourist attraction. It also attracted many homesteaders, especially from Scandinavia, to settle along its route. From 1970 the Great Northern was incorporated into the huge Burlington Northern system, which later became the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation in 1995.

Taking over the roadbeds laid by the abortive 1850s Minnesota and Pacific railroad, the St Paul and Pacific began to build a line across northwestern Minnesota into North Dakota in the 1870s. By 1887 it had reached Great Falls, Montana, by way of Grand Forks and Minot, North Dakota, and Havre, Montana. It then continued through the Marias Pass to Whitefish, Montana. By 1893, the line had passed through Spokane, Washington and the Cascade Range to reach Seattle.