St.Paul, Minnesota, 11 SEP'83
Since Woodtick predicted that I was about to unleash a deluge of Milwaukee Road shots, I'd hate to disappoint. In the early '80s, recently shed of its "Pacific Extension", the Road found itself short of power (or at least power that worked.) Trains started to sport CN power on other parts of the railroad, but the trains that connected with DW&P in Duluth were a likely candidate for power pools - or just borrowing when short! Milwaukee Road had a longstanding agreement for trackage rights on the former Northern Pacific "Skally" to Duluth; by the '80s it had become rights on the former NP up to Hinckley where the NP crossed the former Great Northern from Minneapolis to Duluth. By this time the NP was mostly gone from that crossing on to the north, so the through trains used the former GN to complete the trip to the Twin Ports. This route was fairly active with BN trains (most of their through trains would use the GN all the way up from Northtown Yard in Minneapolis) and also the MILW and C&NW trackage rights trains...and then the Soo Line, too. This train is on the BN's Minnesota Division, the Sixth Sub that connected the wye at "Division Street" (and the Milwaukee's "Pigs Eye Yard") with the Wisconsin Division, Second Sub, at White Bear Lake. From there it's the ex-NP route to Hinckley (a.k.a. "the Skally.") The tracks in the foreground belong to the C&NW - the "Omaha" - going to and from Chicago. I think that's "East St.Paul" yard around the curve on the Omaha. I believe that practically all of this, except the Union Pacific that was the Omaha, is gone. Now the CP and the UP use the former GN through Northtown all the way to Superior with their trackage rights trains.
St.Paul, Minnesota, 11 SEP'83
Since Woodtick predicted that I was about to unleash a deluge of Milwaukee Road shots, I'd hate to disappoint. In the early '80s, recently shed of its "Pacific Extension", the Road found itself short of power (or at least power that worked.) Trains started to sport CN power on other parts of the railroad, but the trains that connected with DW&P in Duluth were a likely candidate for power pools - or just borrowing when short! Milwaukee Road had a longstanding agreement for trackage rights on the former Northern Pacific "Skally" to Duluth; by the '80s it had become rights on the former NP up to Hinckley where the NP crossed the former Great Northern from Minneapolis to Duluth. By this time the NP was mostly gone from that crossing on to the north, so the through trains used the former GN to complete the trip to the Twin Ports. This route was fairly active with BN trains (most of their through trains would use the GN all the way up from Northtown Yard in Minneapolis) and also the MILW and C&NW trackage rights trains...and then the Soo Line, too. This train is on the BN's Minnesota Division, the Sixth Sub that connected the wye at "Division Street" (and the Milwaukee's "Pigs Eye Yard") with the Wisconsin Division, Second Sub, at White Bear Lake. From there it's the ex-NP route to Hinckley (a.k.a. "the Skally.") The tracks in the foreground belong to the C&NW - the "Omaha" - going to and from Chicago. I think that's "East St.Paul" yard around the curve on the Omaha. I believe that practically all of this, except the Union Pacific that was the Omaha, is gone. Now the CP and the UP use the former GN through Northtown all the way to Superior with their trackage rights trains.