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BNSF details Minnesota capital improvements
A bit of history on Darling, MN. In the days of the NP, Darling was one of the “dumps” for the NP meaning that the NP would clean out box cars and refers at that location. The NP Minneapolis Freight House would send one box car to Darling about once a month with all the materials that were reclaimed from the many LCL box cars that were placed for loading. Two or three times a year the cleanout crew at Darling would open an empty refer and find it filled with frozen or rotten bananas! The NP would receive refers from the CBQ in Minneapolis and forward them to Darling. The CBQ usually received the refers from the IC in Chicago. The old NP station number for Darling was “S30”, meaning it was 30 miles east of Staples. Checking the various tracks of refers at Northtown at 1AM on a hot night was a job, but I got paid to be a railroader! 38 years later I retired.
Happily retired NP-BN-BNSF from Northtown.
Hopefully completion of these projects will be followed by an examination into extending NorthStar to St. cloud as was the original plan. It will be nice to see traffic flowing smoother through this stretch instead of trains parked all the time.
Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of BNSF’s planned Minnesota work is the new connection between its Monticello Sub and CP’s mainline in Crystal. This will allow re-routing of CP trains over the Monti, thereby bypassing congestion in BNSF’s Northtown yard. See http://www.startribune.com/local/west/290736391.html for more details.
The NP called them “refers” not “reefers” like the Milwaukee?
I know the congestion is a problem, but it is nice to see the railroads need to invest in capacity. This would have been hard to foresee in the 1970s when much of the industry was bankrupt. I just hope they make sufficient investment soon enough to avoid loosing the traffic due to poor service and/or reregulation.
Could someone tell me about the Monti sub? I’am new to the area and know the line ends in Monti. In fact I was told no trains go past Rogers, mn. Thanks.
The Monti Local usually does not go west of Rogers, but the track from Rogers to the nuke plant in Monticello has “exempt” crossings on it. I was Roadmaster’s Clerk in the 1980’s and highrailed the line with a track inspector basically to get out of the office and see the territory.
Thank you.