Railroad Report

In my last article (“News And Commentary: Norfolk Southern Heritage Fleet”) I discussed the upcoming fleet of 18 diesels coming to the rails of the Norfolk Southern railroad decked out in the paint schemes of each and every NS predecessor; including railroads originally folded into Conrail (split between NS and CSX in 1999.)

Using a recent article on Railfan and Railroad’s “Railnews” column for reference,* here is what we will see:

-The black and yellow scheme of the Virginian Railway.

-The “Pelver blue” scheme of the Norfolk and Western.

-The  blue, grey, and black of the Central of Georgia.

-The green, white, with gold trim passenger locomotive scheme of the Southern.

-The blue, gray, and white of the Wabash.

-The plain black and yellow of the Nickel Plate Road.

-The green and yellow of the Illinois Terminal.

-The white, orange, and grey of the Interstate railroad.

-The black and white of the Savannah and Atlanta.

-The blue and orange of the Jersey Central.

-The solid blue of Conrail.

- The grey, maroon, and yellow passenger locomotive scheme of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western.

-The green and grey passenger locomotive scheme of the Erie.

-The “Cornell red” of the Lehigh Valley.

-A “lightning stripe” paint scheme from the New York Central (details are not out as to whether or not it will be the “freight” version or the “passenger.”)

-The “Tuscan red” with yellow striping of the Pennsylvania.

-The original Norfolk Southern, a short line whose engines were painted red, yellow, and black.**

-And finally, the yellow and green “Bee Line” scheme of the Reading (pronounced “Redding.”)

To see which model of locomotive –ES44AC or SD70Ace- will be wearing which paint job, consult the “Railnews” article for the details.

Now if only CSX could get into the act, along with the BNSF, and that the Union Pacific would repaint their heritage units into more accurate paint schemes, too.  Ah what delights would then roam their rails!

Man did that doubleheader look like a dream come to life as it approached my vantage point, puffing through the old GN Union Yard beneath a cobalt blue sky with the grain elevators that bordered the yard to the west making a perfect backdrop as they toted a string of wine red and maroon and orange cars behind them.  

That was one for you, “Mile-a-minute” Murphy.

“I been in the right place

But it must have been the wrong time …”

-Dr. John, “Right Place, Wrong Time”

“God damn you, Chicago and North Western!  And double-god damn you Kansas City Southern!” I exclaimed as I toiled up a snow-dusted embankment as flurries filled the air around me on a recent cold January Saturday afternoon away down in Rosemount, Minnesota, in a scene fit for Christmas Vacation, but what I was visiting was not a funny sight.  In fact, the sight struck a raw nerve inside which caused those curses to boil up in my chest and explode out of my lips.

What was I visiting?  Well, allow me first to set the stage:

“The Lost Railway of Southern Minnesota” is perhaps the best way to describe today the state of the main line of the Chicago Great Western south of the Pine Bend refinery in Rosemount, Minnesota.  Used and abused after the Chicago and North Western took over the CGW in July of 1968, the main line suffered and suffered even as grain and potash trains to and from Kansas City, Missouri, rolled northward and southward to and from the Twin Cities until the death of the neighboring Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific compelled the Chicago and North Western to bid on –and win- the Rock Island’s “Spine Line” from the Twin Cities to KC, spelling doom for the poor, battered rails of the CGW.

In a cruel irony, the Kanas City Southern once had ownership in the CGW and could easily have effected an “end to end” merger with the line allowing it access to the major railway interchange points of Chicago, the Twin Cities, and Omaha.   For some reason the CGW did not seek talks with the KCS but instead fell into the grubby mitts of the CNW instead.

After penning and posting the article “The CGW (Was) Here” I became inspired to document all the rest of what remained of this once-proud railway, and so I began my quest at a spot along County Road 42 in Rosemount.   The embankment in question that I struggled up high enough to take a southward-facing photo  from marked the southern end of rails on the CGW main line in Minnesota not counting two separate fragments down in Randolph and Dodge Center.

Confused and disoriented by the effects a farm on the south side had on the CGW roadbed, I decided to swing south to try to find what had stood out so clearly on a Bing maps “bird’s eye view” search but now proved elusive with boots now on the ground.

I documented that embankment and the wildly overgrown rails hidden on top of it, then decided to swing south and continue my search. 

Bingo. About half hour later, down in the vicinity of the University of Minnesota’s U More Park I saw what to the untrained eye looked like a wild, overgrown island of land rising up from a fallow sea of farm fields within sight of a towering wind turbine bearing the U of M logo.

I knew different: there was the end of a chunk of grade I knew from Bing maps stretched south of County 42 to this point!

“Mr. Stickney, I don’t think your railroad runs anymore,” I called out loud to the spirit of CGW founder A.B. Stickney as I traipsed up a now-truncated cut along the now wildly overgrown roadbed nestled inside that patch of land. 

Then the thought of a diesel in the yellow-and-green paint of the CNW made me spit out “Bastards!” right after I’d called out to Mr. Stickney’s ghost.

He didn’t hear me.  Nor for that matter did anybody from the CNW (now wholly owned and merged into the Union Pacific as of 1995).

I discovered to my delight pieces of railroad tie lying on the east side of the grade, a definitive “fingerprint” that I’d struck pay dirt.  Coming to a ragged heap of earth barred by a wire fence at the north end of the cut only further confirmed that I’d found the chunk of grade revealed by Bing. 

As I swung out of that cut on the south end of that fragment of grade and hiked back across the fallow snow-dusted fields, I thought of the song quoted here as more flurries fell from the sky.

I pulled up by the south end of the Pine Bend refinery to document the start that a mile or so of wildly overgrown CGW rails past the active end of CGW main line (marked by a heap of earth on the north side of the “private” grade crossing on 140^th street)  and called it a day.

Fast forward a week later to that same spot along County 42 in Rosemount.  After studying the picture I’d taken from the grade on the north side, I’d realized the CGW was still there on the south side emerging from a cut.  Thing is I had to … well, just because I don’t trespass on active railway lines does not mean I won’t trespass on abandoned rail lines.   (And oh so sorry Farmer Brown if you take offense!)

So I snuck onto the CGW and discovered the grade on the south side had been smoothed down a bit but nevertheless rose up and stretched south of that cut fully intact until it got bit off down by U More Park.

That day, the only sounds on that ragged, weedy heap of earth was the wind seasoned by U.S. 52’s distant traffic …and the sound of my breathing and the crunch of snow under my boots.

Sentimentalist that I am, for split seconds as I crunched along I could melt away the years and see rails, ties, and ballast on that roadbed –even trains- as I walked.

After reaching that fence down by U More Park, I about-faced and headed north, stopping to make notes for this article … and discovered in a nearby business an old Burlington Northern boxcar.  

Back at my Chevy Cruze, I saw another boxcar was in this establishment.  I could not help but appreciate the irony of that next door crane and welding company having two old train cars on the grounds; they are like monuments to the trains that once passed by next door.   Them and the two bits of railroad tie I’d disturbed as they lay in the snow on the return trip of my walk on the Chicago Great Western.

The times that I live in are not made for a railroad man…

-The Eels, “Railroad Man”

Snug behind the wheel of my Chevrolet Cruze on a warm late summer afternoon in early September of 2011, I toured southern Minnesota in search of a railroad, or rather, the mortal remains of a railroad: the Chicago Great Western.

From humble beginnings starting in the 1880s, a network of rail lines linking the Twin Cities to Chicago, Omaha, and Kansas City had emerged by the turn of the 20^th Century as the Chicago Great Western, a spunky railroad that by 1950 boasted 1, 458 miles of track. 1

The road had done fairly well in a region overbuilt with railroads (five others along with the CGW served Omaha getting traffic from the Union Pacific there, for example), but the owners of the CGW were turning to merger by the 1960s as the best way to ensure the future of the rail lines they operated.   The only serious suitor, however, turned out to be a railroad that could have cared less for all of the system except for the line to Kansas City: the Chicago and North Western.

By 1981, the CNW had run the Twin Cities-Kansas City route ragged with heavy grain trains but only spit and bailing wire maintenance.  That coupled with (allegedly) poor engineering on the CGW main compelled the CNW to glom onto the Twin Cities-Kansas City line of the bankrupt, liquidated Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific (the “Rock Island line” of song and story). 2

By 1984, the main line of the CGW had become a thing of the past except within the southern suburbs of the Twin Cities starting by the Pine Bend refinery in Roseport extending north to downtown Saint Paul; except for a few fragments in Randolph and Dodge Center, that is now all that remains. 3

Always up for a challenge, I am determined to document all that is left of the CGW’s route across the Gopher State; I began that quest in earnest on that September afternoon.

Like sonar on a remotely-operated undersea sub, the navigation feature on my car’s dashboard began picking up a rail line a couple miles north of the hamlet of Nerstrand, MN.   That’s right, a rail line: nobody thought to check their information when they decided to show on my GPS the CGW main line as still intact when it had in actuality been torn up since the early 1980’s.   An error I quickly exploited as I searched; I could drive the car right up to the exact spot the CGW once was with 100% pin-point accuracy.

During my search, I first found a chunk of grade right where the GPS showed the CGW where it crossed 150^th street, a dirt road which bisects the summit of “Nerstrand Hill”, a slope that once saw many a train ascend and descend it going to and from the Twin Cities.   A mile south of that point, however, at the crossing on 160^th street, I ran into a major reality check: where once there had been grade, ballast, ties, and rails was now just … cornstalks, cornstalks, and more cornstalks.

Later I found a chunk of grade in Nerstrand proper but only a tiny, weed-covered fragment of roadbed on the southeast side of town at the former grade crossing on Lamb Avenue; more farm fields had taken over the right of way there.  

Oh man … was my reaction to how swift farmers had moved to annihilate the CGW as soon as the track removal crews had left.

I returned home awestruck by the destruction of a once-proud railroad but also pleased that I had begun my efforts to document its remains.

“The times that I live in are not made for a railroad man…”

Sing on, Eels.  One look at all that corn flourishing where the CGW’s main once stretched towards the southern horizon and it’s hard not to think of that line from that song of yours.