Charlie Russell Chew Choo Dinner Train

The Charlie Russell Chew Choo loads at the Hanover Boarding Station, on the left side of Highway 426 about ten miles northwest of Lewistown, just past the Spring Creek Trestle. The dinner trains board an hour before departure. The cars are 1950s stainless steel Rail Diesel Cars built by Budd, about 60 tons each. They were made to run under their own power, independent of one another, and are now pulled by diesel locomotives belonging to Central Montana Rail. A caboose stands along the platform as the Red Caboose Gift Shop; volunteers painted it red. From Hanover the train runs over a portion of the former Milwaukee Road line between Kingston Junction and Denton and back, 56 miles across the Judith Basin with the island mountain ranges standing around it.

The Lewistown Area Chamber of Commerce runs the train with the Central Montana Railway. Connie Fry directs the Chamber, and Charlie Denison works as its Train Coordinator. Sources disagree on how long the trip takes. The train’s own site gives the Montana Dinner Train as four and one-half hours. The state tourism listing and the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame call it a three-hour narrated ride, and the railroad marker in Lewistown says about 3 1/2 hours.

Prime rib and the Salt Creek Gang

Dinner is full-course prime rib with drinks and dessert, and vegetarian plates are available. A no-host cash bar serves the climate-controlled, non-smoking coaches. Denison writes that Harry’s Place caters the meal. The state listing calls it “the acclaimed best full course prime-rib dinner east of the Rockies.” Western musicians and saloon girls work the cars. The Hall of Fame describes a guitarist moving from car to car playing selections inspired by Montana. Charles M. Russell’s paintings hang throughout the train, and the narration covers his life.

The train lists antelope, eagles, deer, hawks and coyotes among the wildlife seen from the windows. The Hall of Fame writes that the run to Denton crosses prairie mostly free of highways and power lines, and that “some of the area looks much as it did when it inspired Charlie Russell.”

Then the outlaws come. Denison writes that they belong to Winifred’s Salt Creek Gang, men and women, some of them rumored to be descendants of Kid Curry’s Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. They stage a Wild West shootout outside an old, abandoned saloon, then board and stick up the passengers. The children may get nervous, he writes, but “the cowboys are courteous and playful.” The Hall of Fame places the stop on the return trip and says the actors collect the guests’ 7-dollar bills.

Three trestles to Denton

All three trestles on the route date from 1913, according to the Hall of Fame. The Judith River Trestle comes first: 33 spans and 1,953 feet long, 138 feet high by the Hall of Fame’s figure and 135 by the Lewistown marker’s. Next is the Indian Creek Trestle, 22 spans, 150 feet high and 1,303 feet long, which can be seen from the Danvers gravel road. The last before Denton is the Sage Creek Trestle, 27 spans, 163 feet high and 1,698 feet long. In 1995 a 150-person crew spent six weeks there filming dangerous train sequences for the 1996 movie Broken Arrow.

The tunnel is described differently by each source. The train’s site and Denison call it the Hoosac Tunnel, half a mile long, northwest of Lewistown. The marker says the train passes through the 2,063-foot Sage Creek Tunnel. The Hall of Fame mentions a half-mile tunnel built in 1912–1913, and separately a 2,014-foot Sage Creek Tunnel lying 300 feet underground.

The 2026 season of specialty trains

General dinner trains ran in 2026 from July 5 through October 10, and every one was listed as sold out. Specialty runs filled the gaps: the Montana Cowboy Poetry Dinner Train on August 9 and the Chokecherry Festival Dinner Train on September 13.

The Harvest Train ran on Friday, October 2, 2026, and it began in the parking lot. Visitors could handle grain grown in Fergus County, get close to livestock, and hear from the people who work the land. Each car had a Harvest Ambassador who narrated the trip and explained every item on the plate. Every bite and sip came from Fergus County farms and ranches, including locally crafted hops and beers.

The Wandering Wizard Train is set for Saturday, October 24, 2026, with departures at 5:00 and 7:30 in the evening. Riders are asked to come in costume, and the ride offers sweet treats and magic. The North Pole Adventure Train runs about an hour and a half on Friday and Saturday evenings from November 27 to December 19, 2026. It serves cocoa and cookies, with stories, songs, games, a trip to the North Pole, and a visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus.

The Jawbone and the Milwaukee

Before the railroad, freight reached Lewistown by wagon and people came on foot, on horseback and by stagecoach. The first train arrived in October 1903, and a photograph on the Lewistown marker dates it to October 21. It ran on an extension of a line from Lombard, built by the Montana Railroad Company and locally called “The Jawbone.” The marker gives the legend behind the name: Richard Harlow, the line’s advocate and builder, was known for his excessive verbal promotion of it. Sources disagree on when the Milwaukee took over. The Hall of Fame gives 1908, the marker 1907 to 1910, and the railroad historian Jerry Hanley 1910.

The spur the dinner train rides was built between 1912 and 1913 through the rough country of the upper Missouri River Breaks. Hanley calls the 137 miles from Lewistown to Great Falls the Milwaukee’s most ambitious work in the region, requiring five massive steel trestles and six tunnels. On the Judith River Trestle, one hundred men placed 5,000 yards of concrete and raised nearly 3,000 tons of steel. The steel went up in 32 days, the trestle cost $300,000, and it was finished in September 1913. By September 1914 the line was carrying passengers daily.

In 1943 the Milwaukee’s daily passenger train came up from Harlowton and left Lewistown at 9:25 AM for Great Falls. The 398-mile round trip took about 16 hours. A photograph from that year shows the fireman, Bob Spring, in front of the locomotive; his father, Cy Spring, was the engineer. Hanley’s own father, E.D. “Red” Hanley, fired and ran locomotives on the Northern Montana branch from 1942 to 1977. Hanley remembers running up to the tracks to wave as his father’s train passed the family house, which was big enough for eleven children. Passenger service on the Milwaukee line ended in 1955.

On February 10, 1980, a Milwaukee freight from Great Falls was photographed crossing the county road at Hoosac, 27 miles west of Lewistown. On March 28, 1980, the bankrupt Milwaukee’s last train left Lewistown. The Central Montana Railway, which Hanley and the Hall of Fame describe as non-profit, was organized in 1984. The next year it began hauling grain on state-owned track between Geraldine and Spring Creek Junction. In the late 1980s nearly a mile of new track was laid at Kingston Junction, just west of Spring Creek Junction, where the dinner train’s route now begins. BNSF’s last train left Lewistown on April 10, 2003, after ninety-nine and one-half years of continuous rail service in the town.

Two leased cars and a nighthawk

The Chew Choo made its first run on July 4, 1994, with two leased cars. In 1996 the Chamber bought the five Budd cars still in use; Denison writes of seven cars that “fill up quickly,” with riders from across the United States and from Canada, Scotland and England. On May 24, 2004, a charter of rail fans came down Arrow Creek Hill with Square Butte in the distance. The train made 20 runs in 2015. In the spring of 2011 the Judith River Trestle was severely damaged; a five million dollar grant paid for repairs, done in 2014. The Montana Department of Commerce named the train its 2025 Tourism Destination of the Year, and in 2026 the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame made it a Legacy Inductee for District 6.

The name comes from Charles M. Russell, a St. Louis native whose paintings drew on the Judith Basin and the ranges around it. Denison names “The Toll Collectors,” “The Jerkline” and “The First Furrow.” Russell later spent most of his time in Great Falls, but his first wrangling job was in central Montana. He worked there for 11 years as a nighthawk for several large outfits, keeping the cattle together at night and painting by day. The historian Gayle Shirley wrote of that work in Charlie’s Trail: The Life and Art of C.M. Russell: “He sang to the sleepy animals and gazed in wonder at the stars.”