LIVINGSTON, Mont. For 25 years, Bill Phillips toiled as a machinist in the rail yard here a fancy title, he jokes, for someone whose job was to play in the muck. Now 77 and suffering from asbestosis, a scarring of the lungs caused by inhaling asbestos fibers, Phillips still looks like he just strolled off the yard, dressed in worn overalls over a red T-shirt and sporting a Smokey the Bear baseball cap and a thick white mustache.

Phillips is lively and funny. He can tell stories with the best of Livingstons old-timers, and he doesnt mince words about his former employers legacy in this picturesque gateway to Yellowstone National Park.

Rip, rape and run, he said.

Livingston had always been a rail town. The Northern Pacific Railway founded it in the early 1880s as a strategic midway point between its hubs in Minneapolis and Seattle. It was a place to service steam engines before sending them west over the treacherous Bozeman Pass. A spur line, now abandoned, headed south to Americas first national park, making Livingston and the surrounding area one of Montanas first tourist destinations.