The rolling stock of the defunct Minnesota Zephyr dinner train is now listed on Ozark Mountain Railcar’s website. http://www.ozarkmountainrailcar.com/whatsnew.htm The rolling stock is landlocked as the track to the south of the Zephyr depot has been removed. The nearest live rail is three miles south in Bayport, Minnesota.

The rolling stock listed includes 2 F7s, an ex-SP ¾ dome, an ex-MP dome, several “table cars,” undoubtedly former coaches set up for dining tables, 2 power cars and an F-150 p/up that has a weed spray rig in the back.

Also listed is a strange critter, a commercially fabricated streetcar replica originally built for the local Valley Fair theme park. It’s powered by a gasoline engine and torque converter and was used by the Minnesota Zephyr as a shuttle between downtown Stillwater, Minnesota to the Zephyr’s depot and museum located about a half-mile north.

Until late 2009, The Minnesota Zephyr operated on the eastern end of the ex-NP St. Paul & Stillwater Railroad branch that originally ran from a junction with the NP’s mainline to Duluth in White Bear Lake to Stillwater. This line was sold to the Minnesota Transportation Museum (MTM) in the 1980s and was the first excursion railroad operated by MTM. The locomotive used was NP 4-6-0 No. 328, which had been on static display in Stillwater for years until MTM was allowed to restore it to service in the 1980s. The MTM was forced to leave the line in the early 1990s after NIMBYs objected to the noise from the weekend trains and persuaded the local politicians and bureaucrats to place severe limits on MTM’s train operations. After expending over $50K in legal fees to fight the NIMBYs, MTM threw in the towel and leased the track to the Zephyr’s owner. When the decision was made to leave Stillwater, MTM then approached Ed Burkhardt, President of the Wisconsin Central, and luckily for MTM, Mr. Burkhardt agreed that MTM could continue passenger excursion operations on WC’s Dresser sub from Dresser, Wisconsin to Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota. Today, MTM’s excursion trains (Osceola & St. Croix Valley RR) continue to operate successfully from the Osceola, Wisconsin depot, with a short run to Dresser and a longer run across the St. Croix River to Marine on St. Croix.

It has been reported that the Minnesota Department of Natural resources will purchase the Zephyr’s track that remains and convert the right of way to a hiking/biking trail.

You can get all that equipment for the rock bottom price of a cool half million, then truck it to live rail, and do it all in the worst recession in the last sixty years!

Let me get my checkbook!!!

I was thinking about the same thing. Letting the track get ripped up, orphaning the equipment, was not a good idea. If it doesn't end up scrapped, it'll be surprising.

Eli

The track the Minnesota Zephyr ran on was the former Burlington Northern (ex-Northern Pacific/St. Paul & Duluth/Stillwater & St. Paul) White Bear Lake to Stillwater branch, which was disconnected from the BN at the White Bear end soon after BN discontinued service on the line around 1981. When the line was given to the Minnesota Transportation Museum, it only included the last six miles or so into Stillwater, as the first four miles out of White Bear ran through some wealthy communities who were opposed to re-opening the line through there. The line remained connected to the outside world at the Stillwater end via the Union Pacific (ex-Chicago & Northwestern) branch from Bayport. The Bayport-Stillwater line was abandoned in recent years and torn up by the UP, opening up the former rail yard area in Stillwater for redevelopment, and isolating the Minnesota Zephyr.

I'm guessing if the Minnesota Zephyr could have kept their connection to the outside world, they probably would have, there probably wasn't a whole lot they could do short of acquiring the former C&NW branch for themselves. That would include a swath of prime (if somewhat flood-prone) real estate through downtown Stillwater, not to mention the additional maintenance needed to keep the line open.

Knowing the winding roads leading out of Stillwater (nestled deep in the St. Croix River valley), trucking the equipment out of there should be an interesting challenge. It might make sense to move the equipment up the line and out of the valley while the track is still in place, if it's still passable at this point.

Did anyone look at the pictures? check out the wheels....looks like at least $50K(-ish?) in wheel sets per car.... if you want to interchange them.....once you get to live rail.
Still has good potential though.....maybe I'll win the lottery........

I rode it once on Dec 14 2008. Its last run was Dec 31 2008 on a very cold night. The engine at the south end of the train is I think #787. It was not part of the train when I rode it. The engineer said it had a broken crankshaft if my memory is correct. The last freight train on that line leaving Stillwater was 1982. A guy down the road from me is retired from BN, he was the engineer on that train. In the mid 80s BN gave a bid to the power plant in Bayport to deliver coal but UP won the bid. The tracks through downtown south to connect to UP were removed in 2005. With the RR tracks gone its just one less hurtle for Stillwater to deal with WHEN a new bridge across the St.Croix is built. Since they have been trying to get a new bridge built since the 50s, "when" is a big word in that debate. The city of Stillwater forced the abandonment on those tracks because they had not been used since 1995 when the last steam engine visited. I think it was 328 that visited in 1995. I have been told that BN owns the tracks from just south of the Zephyr trains location up to the driveway to Sunnyside Marina where 95 and 36 connect at the curve. By Sunnyside the tracks have small trees growing through the tracks. It would take some work to remove them. About 100-150 feet south of the southernmost business in town there is a 10 foot washout below the tracks that would take a large dumptruck full of rock to fill. It might be possible to lay down panel track through downtown to get the train to connect to existing rail. Rail is still there at crossings but I think some of them were filled in with blacktop. I just remembered last summer they removed the rails at the crossing into Sunnyside Marina and lowered the blacktop there below the bottom of the rails so there is not such a big hump there. I have lived in Stillwater for the last 16 years. The Zephyr tracks go right behind the house I live in.

Who owns the track now? From what I understand the state plans to pay quite a bit for the right-of-way, and that the last operator wasn't exactly upset by the state buying it.

Chris.

The owner of the Zephyr owns the tracks from the Depot building to the north along 95 and all the way to the end of the tracks near 96 and the bike trail made from another RR bed. They did a survey of the track a few weeks ago. There are 5.9 miles of track. Its in very rough condition and thats a big reason he couldn't sell the operation to someone else to restart a dinner train. If I'm still living here the new bike trail will be one more place for me to ride my bike for exercise. It will be much easier to ride it to downtown than the existing bike trail that ends near the library.

Why did the owner let the track get into such rough shape?

Shame Stillwater won't have any rail activity anymore. Trains helped put the place on the map, after all.

The track was in marginal (i.e., below Class I in today's standards) condition at best when the Minnesota Transportation Museum got it from BN and ran excursions on it starting in the mid-1980s. MTM spent a lot of time, effort and $$ putting in ties to make the track safe. But it was a never ending task and then the NIMBYs started to make their presence felt. By the early 1990s, MTM was outta there and the dinner train started. The track was leased from MTM and in the early 2000s I believe was sold outright to Mr. Parenteau. While the dinner train was somewhat successful, the cost to get the track beyond Class I standards would have been prohibitive I'm guessing and to what purpose? The dinner train never got beyond 10mph anyway and there were enough evenly spaced ties to hold the gauge courtesy of MTM's efforts when they owned it.

The owner of the dinner train made a handsome profit when he sold the ROW to the state. Now, he's waiting for the City of Stillwater to force him to get rid of the rolling stock and locos.

Railroad service was a huge necessity for Stillwater back in the day. Stillwater was a big lumbering town until the early twentieth century. Mostly it had light industry typical for a small city and all that has been long-gone for decades. No need for freight since the 1970s and passenger service was gone in the 1920s or maybe earlier. Twin City Rapid Transit abandoned their service to Stillwater in 1932. Damned paved highways! Stillwater is now a tourist town more-or-less with Anderson Window's huge plant just south of the town in Oak Park Heights. And then there's the big state prison also at Oak Park Heights. Do not pick up hitchhikers anywhere near there is the by-word.

Thanks!

Did the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train ever sell? While I think is was selling for a lot more than the Minn. Zephyr it was in a lot better condition, not to mention on live rail.

I can see someone wanting the dome and the diesels bad enough to move them.

Hi Jim! I don't know if you remember me or not, but I used to edit the Steamboatin' News (later Steamboat and Trolley) newsletter for the MTM's now-gone Lake Minnetonka division from 1999 to early 2001.

That is just too bad re: the NIMBY's. And the fact that the MTM's railroad got tagged a "non-conforming land use" by the county was just outrageous. I can't believe the fact that the Burlington Northern donated the line to the MTM didn't count for nothing. At least Osceola has worked out great despite the Canadian National takeover of the Wisconsin Central.

I have no news on the Spirit Of Washington dinner train. Sorry.

Some of the trees growing through the track south of town are at least 15" across. It would take several days for a crew just to remove all the young trees. The rail that is just south of the last most southern building on the east side of 95 is covered with gravel but still there. There was an article in the Stillwater Gazette that Paradeu wanted to get the train out of town soon before they start pulling up tracks. Part of the "Loop trail" for bicycles will go over the tracks that go south of downtown to Sunnyside Marina. For the people not in Minnesota, a bill passed in congress in March 2012 and was signed by Obama to let the project for a new bridge over the St.Croix happen. Highway 36 rebuild starts spring of 2013. St.Croix bridge construction starts fall 2013. They start drilling down into the river in June 2012 for testing for bridge footings. There is about 25 feet of water, 75 feet of muck (sediment, sawdust, logs and who knows what else) before they hit rock.

A side note. If anyone saw the Zephyrs old dark blue F350 weed spraying truck that had RR wheels on both ends,,,, about 2004 or so some drunks set the cab on fire during Lumberjack days at about 2:40am one night. The truck was totalled and the RR axles were transferred to the newer Ford truck they bought. I then bought the old F350 for about $400 and was going to replace the cab and fix it up. After talking to an EXTREMELY picky DOT inspection officer I instead parted out the truck.

They are letting out bids and the Zephyr tracks might start getting removed as soon as June of 2012. I will try to remember to post it here when I see things happen.