Keeping this simple; the CB&Q accessed the Great Northern Depot in Minneapolis by trackage rights over the GN. The NP, C&NW and CGW passenger trains did so too with their passenger trains operating between Minneapolis and St Paul. This line is still active. Amtrak while it operated out of the GN depot in Minneapolis used this trackage too. The Milwaukee Road would have had to obtain trackage rights to use the GN Depot.
The Milwaukee Road reached its depot in downtown Minneapolis using its own trackage through the Merriam Park neighborhood of St Paul and the Shortline Bridge over the Mississippi; also used by Rock island and Soo Line passenger trains. This station was closed when Amtrak started on May1st 1971.Milwaukee Road had substantial business in the Twin Cities, including the Ford Plant in St Paul and valuable switching business in South Minneapolis and needed its own trackage and their own downtown Minneapolis depot.
The Great Northern and C&NW operated what was called the East Minneapolis yard near the University of Minnesota. Milwaukee Road built a switch line to access this yard from its mainline through Merriam Park. To my knowledge, the Milwaukee Road never used this line for passenger trains.
I am a retired NP-BN-BNSF Clerk from Northtown (Minneapolis) and will try and sort out the questions from the last two posts.
A BN Vice-President named Charlie Bryan made the 1985 decision to remove the westbound main track between Big Lake and Becker. He was fired over that! His idea was to eliminate every tenth mile of double track and have a CTC railroad. This was a mistake that came to haunt the BN/BNSF over the years. No one wanted to make anyone look bad, so the decision stood. The BN was heavily involved with the “Quality” program in the late 1980’s. The train dispatchers made studies and told management that restoring the double track would save money in the long run. To put a short story long, in 2009, the BNSF re-configured the track at Big Lake (what with the North Star work) to make the restoration of the double track easier. The crossing signals on the north side of the single track have been moved out to accommodate the second track.
St. Paul Union Depot—the CBQ, NP NCL, and GN EB would pull by the SPUD and back into the depot to be properly oriented for outbound movement to Minneapolis or Chicago.
Merriam Park area of St. Paul–the MILW had a spur track from that point, past the old UofM football stadium and into the NP’s South East Minneapolis yard. Usually only grain or industry loads to the MILW and empties back used that connection. The MILW would pull in drop the NP cars and go out with their cars. All of the right of way was reclaimed in the early 1970’s after the BN merger.
Terminal Capacity–any major terminal is a pain in the butt. Trains from Willmar (100 miles), Dilworth (234 miles), or Superior (134 miles) are dying on line. The situation is such that Northtown is calling “Shuttle Crews” to pull trains into the yard. PTI (the crew hauling is looking for van drivers!). On the Hinckley Sub, the CP and UP trains are also being dog-caught.
Thanks so much for this information. I hope others find it as interesting and informative as I do.
The eye opener for me was that CBQ trains to Minneapolis and beyond had to reverse out of SPUD- how inconvenient! I assumed they could somehow use what you say was a MILW spur to the NP at SE Minneapolis. One way to look at this is to say that, from a railroad operations perspective, SPUD, then as now is in the wrong place! A better location would have been 3/4 mile east near Hoffman Avenue, making everyone happy but the CNW to Chicago, but you can understand why the City fathers would not be keen on that. So, to my original point, it turns out that passenger access to the two Twin City centres has never been ideal. It seems to me the Empire Builder might be better off reversing into SPUD around the wye to the east, but I understand there are still servicing facilities at Midway that presumably they don’t have the funds to relocate.
You seem sure the Northern Lights express will never happen; if perchance it did, I would have thought there might be a chance one of them could become the Afternoon Hiawatha to Chicago (tail wagging the dog), which would require reversal at Target Field and SPUD.
I think what is happening on the route into Northtown from the north is foretaste of what will happen in many other places as the amount of freight continues to expand- it is just that the expansion here has been faster and sooner than other places - even with massive investments of the kind BNSF is putting into North Dakota. You can’t run passenger trains (fast, frequent, and reliable) in this environment.
I think that public demand for rail services may well grow in some regions, but congested freight railroads, and Amtrak services (mostly slow, infrequent, unreliable) that are not a good advert for the product will make any comeback extraordinarily difficult.
The choices that Amtrak made in 1971 for its routes out of the Twin Cities should be looked at. Amtrak should have used the ex-GN line between St Cloud Minnesota and Fargo for both the Empire Builder and the North Coast Hiawatha. BN chose the NP line from Northtown to Casselton North Dakota for its preferred freight route at the time of the merger; which was always a busy freight line. GN was using the Willmar line as its preferred freight route before the merger. The Saint Cloud line still was used by the Western Star up until Amtrak. The track was capable handling passenger trains. When Amtrak began operating the North Coast Hiawatha it chose the NP line via Staples instead of the GN line. The GN line was used only by locals after the merger. Think about it, today Amtrak would be using a line that would see little freight traffic. BNSF would have both its ex-NP main line and the GN Willmar line for freight only.
In the 1970s, Amtrak used both routes to Fargo, with the Empire Builder on the GN, up to the discontinuance of the Hiawatha, I believe. I imagine Amtrak wasn’t given much option by BN. ‘we’re focussing all traffic on the NP because of the location of Northtown yard, there’s plenty of capacity (look, we’ve even begun to single!) and we’re going to let the GN line deteriorate, unless you want to pay’.
I imagine BNSF might in future want to upgrade the GN if traffic continues to rocket, even via the cut off from Casselton, but it all looks a bit cramped from Target Field east.
The MILW had a wonderful by pass to the city, of course, which could be connected to the GN, but that’s in the hands of the City, and gone forever.
Yes, the westbound CBQ trains (TCZ"S, EB, and NCL) would pull by Division Street and back into the depot. At one time the CBQ power on the EB was switched off the train and headed to Dayton’s Bluff DH. At some point in the 1960’s the CBQ power stayed on the train to Havre, Montana and returned on the next eastbound EB. The CBQ E-s could not go west of Havre due to lack of dynamic brakes. The CBQ used GN freight power in return, but I don’t know how far the GN diesels ventured off the GN. The NCL always switched power at St. Paul that is CBQ units for NP passenger F’s.
Eastbound was about the same, except that the GN and NP swapped out lounge cars (Ranch Cars and Travelers Rest) and their dining cars at St. Paul for freshly stocked and crewed cars. The dining car and lounge car crews worked a St. Paul-Chicago-Seattle-St. Paul rotation. The two cars that came in eastbound on, say, a Monday, were restocked and went out on Tuesday. McKenzies “Dining Car Line to the Pacific” has more detail on this move. I worked as a call boy on the NP in 1969 and early 1970 and needed to know the various NP train and engine agreements. I don’t remember reading that the engine crew received extra pay for pulling past the depot and then backing in, also there might have been a local agreement to the effect.
Back to the present and the SPUD! If you have access to an ATCS monitor kit, please download the Twin Cities compressed layout. There are two additional layouts, Twin Cities East and Twin Cities West. Amtrak is death against any backup move, so that is why we see three control points at the east end of the SPUD. They are CP5301, CP5304 and CP 5305. Those are on UP’s (X-RI) Albert Lea Sub, but the BNSF East Hump Dispatcher controls them.
There are two railcams at the east of SPUD. Go the “Uniondepot.org” and select one of two views.
^^^ Your nuts to post your phone number. I can tell you as a former Moderator on another website. Not saying the posters can’t be trusted here but there is web crawling software that runs over this website looking for phone numbers and emails for fradulent usage by hackers.
Dreyfusshudson stated, “With respect to Jclass’s point, I was rather assuming that the only sensible route north and west was the NP. Two reasons for this, firstly this gets you to Duluth, a likely end point(via what seems to be the ex GN line?). “
That this route “north and west” of Minneapolis “was the NP” continues to be a misperception, probably because this was indeed the NP’s main route out of the Twin Cities (the other being its route to Duluth which was abandoned north of St. Paul due to a horrible 2 percent northward grade). But the route was first that of a Great Northern predecessor, the St. Paul and Pacific. The line was completed from Minneapolis to Elk River in 1864, and to St. Cloud in 1866. This later became part of the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railroad, the direct predecessor of the Great Northern. As the Northern Pacific was chartered to build west from the head of the lakes at Duluth (starting at Carlton, MN), it initially had no direct entry into St. Paul and Minneapolis. It eventually built a line from Brainerd to Sauk Rapids (near St. Cloud) to have Twin Cities traffic handled by the St. P&P and the St. PM&M. The St. PM&M completed a line from Minneapolis to St. Cloud on the west side of the Mississippi River (via Monticello) in 1882. The NP didn’t have its own line until 1883 with the completion of the St. Paul and Northern Pacific Railroad, which built a parallel line to that of the St. PM&M on the east side of the Mississippi River. Eventually, these parallel lines were operated as double track, dispatched by the Northern Pacific, but right until the BN merger in 1970, GN owned one track, and NP the other. Since neither of the Great Northern routes to St. Cloud were the “main line” (which was via Willmar), and the NP dispatched the “Elk Rive
You are correct that the NP used the term “Hennepin Avenue Station”.
As a point of miscellaneous information about the NP–only regularly scheduled NP passenger trains and sections thereof would use the GN between St. Paul and Minneapolis.
A nonscheduled (extra) passenger train, such as a Girl Scout Special, would be received by the NP in the area of 3rd Street, St. Paul and used the NP Lines “A” and “B” from St. Paul to Northtown and west on the NP/GN joint line westward to Staples.
The “A” Line ran from 3rd Street, St. Paul to Northtown around the University of Minnesota, by the GN depot and north and west to Northtown by the old NP Lower Yard. The “B” line pickup at roughly where Park Junction is now and continued to Northtown. What is left of the “A” Line is between Division Street and Park Junction (St. Paul Sub). Part of the “A” line is a transit way for UOFM buses and the other part is abandoned.
Other than the obvious, what was the reason that the NP chose not to call the Great Northern Station in Minneapolis by its proper name, and did any NP employees think this was more than a bit odd?
I grew up in Minneapolis and the GN depot was always referred to as the GN depot by everyone who lived here. The GN did not operate between the Twin Cities and Chicago but you knew the GN depot was the place to catch the Zephyr and 400. GN depot was a generic term for the station for people. If the NP wanted to serve the Minneapolis downtown area it had little choice but use the GN Depot. It would have had to reach downtown Minneapolis using someone else’s tracks even if it built its own station downtown. The NP had to use Soo Line trackage to reach home rails in Northeast Minneapolis. GN was more that happy to collect the money from the other railroads that used the GN Depot. The GN Empire Builder arrived five minutes before the NP North Coast Limited eastbound, there was an intense rivalry between the two.
Everyone I knew from the NP Operating Department used the term “GN” Depot. Not sure why the passenger department said “Hennepin Avenue Depot”.
There was and still is a lot of joint trackage in the Twin Cities. I originated and later keyed MTCE of WAY timerolls the area. “J:” was the prefix for labor distribution of time spent in the affected areas. As information the entire line from Coon Creek to Superior is “Joint” trackage between the BNSF, UP, and CP. The St. Paul Sub and Midway Sub is all joint trackage. The Wayzata sub from Harrison Street to Cedar Lake Jct is joint with the TCW and UP (UP to Lyndale Jct and on the Monti line to MW Jct).
The Staples sub from University to Coon Creek and parts of the Northtown Yard (as the 603 switch) are also joint.
As roadmaster’s clerk I had to keep on top of the distribution of labor so that each foreign railroad was billed correctly. I did not know the percentage that the foreign roads paid the BN/BNSF as the local people did not have access to those contracts…
A slight correction on ARICAT’s earlier post regarding the NP/SOO trackage. The NP passenger did use joint NP/SOO tracks from GN 1st Street to 14th Avenue North where the SOO went straight and the NP curved to the right and across the Mississippi River to Northtown. I only saw one eastbound SOO passenger train in the few nights I worked at NP Lower Yard.
Lots of memories and I really enjoy the many posts on this thread.
Many thanks. I’ve heard that the current route via Midway to SPUD is very slow trackage, with hand thrown switches, but if you do the sums, a back up move would likely take more time and lead to an additional movement through a busy junction, so Amtrak probably has it right!.
I don’t know the answer to Dreyfusshudson’s question. All the Minnesota Commercial trackage is considered yard limit. This means the movement needs to stop in one half the range of vision.
Can someone else tell us about a running track from CTC St. Anthony to CTC Merriam Park, through the Midway Depot? My estimate is that the EB is moving about 10MPH.