“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 140th 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.