SP/AFT 4449 on display (1975) in Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis, where Minnesota Transportation Museum maintains the cute ex-Milwaukee depot. Last I heard, they were tearing up these tracks. Was that ever completed?

http://community.webshots.com/photo/60196934/97780940IUxheP
ryarger@rypn.org

> ...Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis, where
> Minnesota Transportation Museum maintains the
> cute ex-Milwaukee depot. Last I heard, they
> were tearing up these tracks. Was that ever
> completed?

Not certain, but it comes as no surprise that tracks would be taken out. As a resident of those parts 1969-1980, I remember the AFT's visit, as well as the Royal Hudson's visit to the very same locale a year or two later.

Even by the early 80's this area of Minneapolis had become one of those industrial "ghost towns." Not as well-known either is the fact that the Minnehaha Park branchline was once part of the original Chicago-Minneapolis mainline of the CMStP&P.

hi_plain@yahoo.com

Only half the tracks were taken out. That was for the Highway 55 re-route. The tracks remain from the Princess Depot on north. If you ask me, if a train isn't a train without a caboose, then a depot isn't a depot without tracks! :-)

Tony - Agree 100% with this. Not hard to find a couple of sections of rail and a few ties and lay them in front of the preserved depot. Without the track, it's hard for the "unwashed" to understand the structures significance. To them, it's just appears to be another old building. Put the track in front, and they can begin to understand its reason for being.

Les

The Minnehaha depot is owned and maintained by the Minnesota Historical Society. MTM volunteers staff it. The track in front of it and for a half mile north is in place, but dormant. Beyond that are grain elevators and mills. That part of the railroad is very active and switched daily by Minnesota Commercial. Farther north, the same line is used to deliver LRVs to Metro Transit.

Aaron Isaacs in Minneapolis

You're preaching to the choir here, Aaron. :-) I just hiked up and down the entire dormant section on Easter snapping away with my camera right and left. Also, I fondly recall my days as a Princess depot volunteer. Talk about an easy thing to learn to do! I swear I will return one day once some other irons out finally out of the fire for me.

Bad news: recent road work on East Minnehaha Parkway and Nawadaha Boulevard saw the tracks cut and the cross bucks removed! What did Canadian Pacific have to say about this?

Here's a photo:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jvstin/29 ... 21809@N20/

Don't see where the cross bucks would have been unless further down the now cut line. Anyway, the tracks still seem to be in front of the depot (opposite side of the structure in this shot), which is the main thing.

Les

The Freedom Train was mentioned, and I wonder how many of those display sites from 1975-76 still exist with rails that can take trains? Not one of the few that I have been to personally have tracks still in place.

Les:

The line has been paved over at East 46th Street and cut at East Minnehaha Parkway and at Nawadaha Boulevard--all well north of the depot itself.

When I was there today I came across a lone railfan's protest about the rails being cut left on the grounds of the Princess Depot (but not affixed to any part of the historic structure itself:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=4261742
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=4261743

I also took this shot of the tracks and the depot:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=4261740

In the 1990s the Canadian Pacific loved to shuttle a business car down to the Princess for shipper meetings and so forth. What a crying shame that dried up.

Tony -

Thanks for the photo of the current condition of the depot and track. I noticed that they have put what looks like a box over the train order signal marker. Maybe this is to prevent vandalism or theft.

Les

I got to say this:

I do not care that the line north of the Princess Depot is now cut in three places. I vote that the line be acquired by the Minnesota Transportation Museum from the Princess depot to the end of active track north of 46th Street, the tracks repaired and rehabilitated to 10 MPH status, and, with the cooperation of the Minnesota Commercial, Minneapolis Park board, and the Minnesota Historical Society (they own the Minnehaha Depot), excursions offered from Minnehaha Park on a trial basis. Said excursions would run from the Princess up the old Milwaukee Road allowing riders to behold the historic grain elevators on Hiawatha Avenue from a heavy rail perspective, enjoy the sight of Blue Line LRTs from, say, the cupola of a caboose, and then enjoy the breathtaking view offered by the Short Line bridge. The train's power would run around the consist down at or near the MNNR roundhouse, where a passing track is available and from there return to the Princess. It would make a decent hour-long excursion comparable in time (if not scenery) from Osceola, WI, to Dresser, WI. If these trial excursion were successful, they could be offered on a regular or semi-regular basis.

Bringing heavy rail trains back to Minnehaha Park would help boost park attendance as well as generate positive publicity for the Minneapolis park system, making it a win-win scenario.

What would it take for such a dream to come true?

I also "2nd" That Idea as well RF261. More trackage and preservation for MTM. This would also give them another location to showcase other railroad equipment. More importantly, saving a small disappearing urban ROW.

Here's more on the Minnehaha Depot:

http://sites.mnhs.org/historic-sites/minnehaha-depot

Enjoy! ^_^

Thanks j32885. :-)

I would like to amend my proposed excursion route to have the train turn on a wye track located just east of the Short Line Bridge. This would be far easier than running down to the MNNR roundhouse to switch the engine from the front of the train to the back.

Fine, as soon as you send cubic piles of $$.

Oh, and also figure out how to triple the number of FRA qualified volunteers.

And a nice ready to run 5 car train set with at least 3 locomotives would be nice.

-Hudson