To give readers a sense of what is happening for the construction of the Glacier Rail Park, I thought I would show a few maps of the properties (Satellite imagery by Google Maps):
First, let's look at the lay of the land:
Here we can see the central portion of the town of Kalispell, Montana. The main East-West road is Hwy 2, which runs along the Southern border with Glacier National Park to the East and through Idaho/Northern Washington to the West. The main North-South road is US Route 93 which runs along the West side of Flathead Lake to the South of Kalispell and to the Canada-US border via Eureka, Montana.
The area highlighted in red/pink is the old gravel facility, which will become the new Glacier Rail Park. The yellow represents track that will be maintained whereas the blue lines represent track that is existing, but will be removed as downtown gets a much-needed renovation.
Next, let's see the proposed land for the Rail Park:
Here we see the gravel facility as seen by Satellites. The railroad track runs diagonally on the right side of the image, the Flathead River runs to the left. There is an existing facility to the North and a housing sub-division to the South. This creates a very precise location for the Glacier Rail Park.
The red/pink highlighted area shows what the City of Kalispell plans to develop into the Rail Park. Overall, the area seems to average about 700 feet North to South (although that varies quite a bit), but East-West, the park seems to be 1300-1500 feet. Great for a modeler, but that might be tight for the prototype. Oh well, I'm sure they can handle it!
Lastly, let's look at a quick sketch of what the buildings/track might look like:
As you can see, this facility is small, but might just serve the city of Kalispell quite well going into the future. This lot will have to handle at least 1000 car loads per year if CHS and about 4-5 other businesses take up residence inside the park, not to mention the cars on the team track.
That's all for now!
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