I am working on a shelf layout that originally was intended as an innercity switching layout, but after seeing some old pictures, I am now moving towards modelling a short stretch of the RR line past the Hiawatha Avenue grain elevators in southern Minneapolis - there is something about those elevators towering over the trains that just plain appeals to me.
I have been googling for more information, but without being able to locate answers to many of the questions I have. I’ve heard that the Hiawatha Avenue operations was discussed at Northstar '99 (which unfortunately was before I rediscovered model railroading).
Can anyone tell me more about the grain elevator railroad operations on Hiawatha Avenue, or refer me to books I can go buy about this subject ?
Like what railroad company operated that RR line in the late 1950s/early 1960s - a 2005 post http://trains.com/TRC/CS/forums/344139/ShowPost.aspx by big_boy_4005 seem to indicate that it might have been the Milwaukee Road (Ie the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad) originally, and by the Minnesota Commercial in modern times ?
Edit: I just realized that if I searched for “Milwaukee Road” and “Hiawatha Avenue” on google, I might find something. And the answer to the above question is “Yes - Milwaukee first, then Minnesota Commercial”.
What kind of motive power was used to switch grain cars around on the tracks at the elevators - was it industrial switchers belonging to the elevators, or engines provided by the RR company that ran the line past the elevators ?
Well yes, that was originally the Milwaukee Road mainline paralleling Hiawatha Avenue coming from the crossing near Ft.Snelling beyond the southeast edge of the city all the way downtown, at least 6-7 miles. Same route the light rail takes now more or less. In the 1880’s-90’s the Milwaukee built the Short Line and Short Line Bridge over the Mississippi, so mainline trains going west had a shorter line (but with steeper grades) to Minneapolis. At about Lake Street the east-west Short Line met the old mainline at a wye junction. Passenger trains backed up the 30 blocks or so to the Milwaukee Road depot downtown. After the ShortLine was built, the trackage south of Lake St. along Hiawatha became a branchline serving grain elevators etc. located along the line.
The line along Hiawatha included the Milwaukee’s main Mpls yards, and at about 26th and Hiawatha (just north of the junction with the shortline) the Milwaukee had a large shops/roundhouse and turntable installation. I suspect that Hiawatha line being so important to the Milwaukee helped sway the railroad to name it’s top train “The Hiawatha” eventually.
BTW Minneapolis was founded in the 1860’s, about the time Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha” poem was popular. Since the poem was set in Minnesota, city founders used several character names from the poem as Minneapolis place names, like Hiawatha Avenue and Lake Hiawatha, Lake Nokomis, Minnehaha Creek, Minnehaha Falls etc.
For books, if you’re modelling pre-WW2 “Minneapolis and the Age of Railways” by by Don L. Hofsommer has many train/grain pics, although more of the downtown elevators than the Hiawatha ones. “Dreams, Disasters, and Demise: The Milwaukee Road in Minnesota” by John C. Luecke would be another good book to get.
BTW if you model the line, be sure to include the 1875 “Princess” depot near Minnehaha Falls / Park…[:)]
Looks like the Luecke book is slightly expensive - cheapest one I found on Amazon was $90, and there was one copy at $255 (ouch!). Probably will have to wait until next summer, when I get to the cities, to go see if the library has a copy.
But the Hofsommer book was quite reasonable, and I have ordered a copy. Thanks for the book suggestions !
I had already found these sources, but thank you very for taking the time to look up these places for me! Some other interesting pics from the area can be found in a 2004 thread where big_boy_4005 posted on his mill layout - quite a few cool prototype pics of the area in this thread:
AFAIK they wouldn’t have used any - if by ‘they’ you mean the elevators themselves. The Milwaukee had a very long yard paralleling Hiawatha, plenty of locomotives on hand. I don’t believe any of the elevators along Hiawatha had their own power, they were worked by the Milwaukee.
You’d have to try to find photos or something to be absolutely sure, but for the 50’s-60’s most any diesel road switcher should work. I know the MILW had GP’s, Baldwins and ALCO’s during that time, and at one time or another you could find any them in the Twin Cities.
Interesting. I’ve got a short shelf layout, so small locos is the order of the day.
Checked http://www.thedieselshop.us/MilwRR.html - mmm - likely diesel yard power in the early 60s might have been Alco S2s and S4s. Mmmm - they also had a couple of GE 44-tonners, not necessarily in Mpls, but still.
Mmm - I already got an S1 and a GE 70-tonner. Guess I’ll just wing it with these locos, at least for the time being, even if they are not 100% prototypical for the Milwaukee Road.
Thanks again, Stix ! I am waiting eagerly for the books I have ordered, but it takes a week or two for books to get here from the states.
Hiawatha Ave is now on Google Map’s “Street View”, try doing a search on like "3800 Hiawatha Avenue, Minneapolis MN. Grain elevators on the east side of the street, light rail on the west.
(I tried a link but it doesn’t seem to work right, keeps taking you to St.Paul instead!)
Looks neat. But unfortunately I have just decided to abandon the Hiawatha Avenue layout without finishing it, in favor of building a layout based on Progressive Rail’s Airlake Industrial Park in Lakeville - a plan based on Airlake turned out to be a much more interesting switching layout candidate than Hiawatha (which would be mainly grain and flour).
Mmmm - I could actually sort of make a two scene layout here - Industrial park w/varied customers on two thirds of the shelf, Grain elevators/urban canyon on the last third. Mmm. Maybe something like this:
But I still have immensely enjoyed researching Hiawatha Avenue - and I loved the books you recommended, Stix - thank you for those tips!
Hopefully not a stupid suggestion. Why don’t you try mapquest.com to get a lay of the land, so to speak. A lot of side roads will be new but most old towns have roads named “mill, union, church, ferry” etc. If you ignore the rest you should end up with the main dirt roads from the pre asphalt days. Another tool is to seek out “for sale” ads and cross reference with the city’s database to find the age of various houses in the area. I know my city web page allows viewers to look at real estate property descriptions by the block. Good luck.
Hey again. I’m Jim. We’ve been going back and forth for a while on these grain elevators. I wanted to take a stab at finding a pic for you but you might have to contact the library. You can try and get the shot yourself but if it does come thru on your computer, e mail me a hi def copy. The web site is www.mplib.org/mphoto.asp . The accession # is m0156. I don’t know if the 0 is o but it sounds like a great arial shot in the 1940s. I typed in “grain elevator arial” for the year 1940 and got about 300 results, mostly ground shots. Check your e mail for an e bay seller of 1930’s and 40’s maps from a private collection. The reason I’m so interested is the (hopefully) similarity of our projects. Huge grain silos (just recently knocked down) are going to play a large part of my overall design. The Erie Canal slip harbor was just recently restored (ongoing city project) and it’s practically walking distance from the silos. A 5 minute drive puts you at the Lackawanna Steel site. Ten minutes in another direction is the Buffalo airport. Off the top of my head I can’t remember the name of the company that worked on “the bomb” but I would be amis without somehow slipping this in. I’m still playing with graph paper! Check out the site and let me know. phuster
I have seen quite a few pictures of elevators in the Twin Cities - the Minnesota Historical Society has a nice database which both lists their image collection and show samples of a lot of digitized images.
E.g here: the stretch of track alongside Hiawatha Avenue in southern Minneapolis, with elevators lining both sides of a band of multiple tracks:
