Between 1958 and 1962, Milwaukee’s timetable shrank from 40 to 24 pages. The big loss, of course, was the Olympian Hiawatha, which was cancelled in 1961. The 1962 Seattle World’s Fair led to a huge increase in passenger business for the Great Northern and Northern Pacific, and rumor had it that the Milwaukee pushed to cancel its Seattle train before the fair because it feared that the fair’s boost in service would lead the Interstate Commerce Commission to refuse to allow a discontinuance immediately after the fair.
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Under ICC orders, Milwaukee continued to run a train with the same numbers, 15 & 16, as the Olympian Hiawatha as far west as Deer Lodge, Montana. The train started in Minneapolis; passengers from Chicago or other cities east of Minneapolis would have to take the Afternoon Hiawatha to Minneapolis and change trains and change to the Morning Hiawatha eastbound.
Most of the major cities that the Milwaukee served west of Deer Lodge were also served by the Northern Pacific, so the ICC probably felt it could allow the Milwaukee to cancel the train west of there without impacting anyone. However, that meant NP and Milwaukee trains would continue to stop at Butte and Deer Lodge, so it is surprising that the ICC required the Milwaukee to operate as far as Deer Lodge instead of terminating at Butte.
The ICC did in fact only require continuation as far west as Butte. But Butte wasn’t a division point so for operating reasons the Milwaukee Road chose to operate to the next division point to the west, Deer Lodge.