CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

List of Montana railroads

Wikimedia list article

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 27, 2025
Entity authorityQ16191725 ↗
Source-derived summary

The following railroads operate in the U.S. state of Montana.

Common freight carriers

BNSF Railway (BNSF)

Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway (BAP)

Central Montana Rail, Inc. (CM)

Dakota, Missouri Valley and Western Railroad (DMVW)

Mission Mountain Railroad (MMT)

Montana Rail Link (MRL)

Union Pacific Railroad (UP)

Yellowstone Valley Railroad (YSVR)

Private freight carriers

Global Rail Group

Lincoln County Port Authority (LCPA)

Montana Limestone Company (MLC)

Port of Montana (POM)

Transco

Passenger carriers

Amtrak (AMTK)

Defunct railroads

Electric

Amador Railway

Anaconda Copper Mining Company (Electric Light and Railway Department)

Bozeman Street Railway

Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway (BA&P, BAP)

Butte Consolidated Railway

Butte Electric Railway

Gallatin Light, Power and Railway Company

Gallatin Valley Railway

Gallatin Valley Electric Railway

Great Falls Street Railway

Helena Light and Railway Company

Helena Light and Traction Company

Not completed

Montana Railway

North and South Railway

Notes

References

Association of American Railroads (2003), "Railroad Service in Montana" (PDF).. Retrieved May 11, 2005.

Hilton, George W. (1990). American Narrow Gauge Railroads. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-2369-9.

Editorial summary

“List of Montana railroads” enters the record as wikimedia list article. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what List, Montana and railroads can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2003, 2005, 1990—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around List, Montana and railroads.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“List of Montana railroads” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, List, Montana and railroads provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 27, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16191725. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2003, 2005 and 1990.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “List of Montana railroads”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow List of Montana railroads primary sources, List of Montana railroads archive and List research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “List of Montana railroads”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “List of Montana railroads” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.