Hi --
A question came up about the Minnesota Transfer Railroad, which would make an interesting Twin Cities prototype to model. I have done a little research on this one (for a layout that didn't get built) and wanted to share some of the things I learned, so others can use it.
The MTRY was, as the name implies, a an transfer/terminal type of railroad, jointly owned by a bunch of railroads that ran to the twin cities.
Here is a 1947 map from the Soo line (linked from the Minnesota Railroad Research Project web page) showing some of the railroads that ran into the Twin Cities. The MTRY is the purple line running north from the center of the map up past New Brighton.
I a while back did some research considering an MTRY based layout in the early 1960s. This is some of the things I learned:
They were still using cabooses outside the yard area in the early 1960s - cabooses were discontinued in 1969 (with conductors riding in the cab of the train from 1969 onwards).
Some of the engines user by connecting railroads in 1963
Lines the MTRR could do interchange with:
Numbers from 1954 indicate that the MTRR handled about 2500-3500 cars a day, and that it did local switching for about 400 local customers. I don't have the corresponding numbers for 1963, but assume that they would not be *extremely* different - perhaps a little than in 1954 (since road transport on the the Interstates was taking over a larger share of the traffic by 1963).
The various railroads dropping off and picking up cuts of cars from the yards worked like this:
The Minnesota Transfer is still around. Or rather - the successor railroad Minnesota Commercial (which is a non-union railroad) is still around, but now as a shortline instead of a transfer railroad (since the rail scene in the Twin Cities has been consolidated a lot during the years - there is no longer nine class 1 railroads in the cities).
Some mergers:
The Omaha Road merged into the C&NW in 1957, and the C&NW was merged into the UP in 1995.
The NP and the GN merged into the Burlington Northern in 1970 - and 1996 the BN was merged with the ATSF to form the BNSF.
The Milwaukee Road was merged into the Soo Line in 1986 - and the Soo line is today owned by the Canadian Pacific Railroad.
Here is a link to a virtual tour of the Minnesota Commercial, created by David "Zoo" Zuhn of St. Paul.
A book on the Minnesota Transfer (which apparently was nicknamed "The Mighty Midget") is the 1954 32-page book "Gateway to the Northwest - the Story of the Minnesota Transfer Railway", by rail historian Frank P Donovan, which still can be picked up once in a while used, but not necessarily very cheap.
Smile, Stein
A very comprehensive overview of Minnesota Transfer Railway.
If anyone from Kalmbach is listening, Minnesota Transfer would make a great prototype-to-layout story in the spirit of the "Classic Railroads You Can Model" and "More Railroads You Can Model" for the next generation of new material. Why not a special book, or How to Build Realistic Bridgeline Railroads special issue with a half dozen well-detailed prototypes like Minnesota Transfer?
In fact, what potential for expanded spin-off articles further describing interaction (and layout planning) in sub-chapters about interchanges, junctions, staging, let alone modeling rolling stock with so many r.r names.
A similar kind of bridgeline story, a well-implemented survival perspective, is the now rock-solid Reading Railroad successor: "Reading & Northern" (map). Industries include anthracite coal, and Yuengling (USA's oldest brewery), and even a steam/diesel passenger excursion division.
P.S.: Nicely done Stein!
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
Frank Donovan also wrote a very good book in the early fifties on the Minneapolis & St.Louis, which became part of the CNW system in 1960. I'm happy to say I have both books. (BTW the Omaha was part of the CNW for decades before it "officially" merged with CNW. For many years the only difference was the initials on the engine's cab - C St.P M & O instead of C&NW. Otherwise they were identical from about 1920 on.)
One difficulty in modelling the MN Transfer is what they did was basically take a cut of 50 cars from yard A a couple miles away to yard B and bring a similar cut back. They did some on-line servicing of industries but were primarily a transfer RR. That being said, with staging reprensenting yards off the layout, you could do it I guess.
A bonus with MN Commercial now is the Midway Amtrak depot is on their line (just a few blocks from the MCCR roundhouse and small turntable) so someone modelling that area could include the Empire Builder along with their freight traffic.
tgindyP.S.: Nicely done Stein!
Thank you.
Sketch of Midway yards : http://www.universityavenuehistory.com/images/map_000.jpg
Minnesota Transfer Alco S4 no 104: http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_mt104.jpg
Minnesota Transfer RS3 no 200: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3216/2700120488_3804552e69.jpg
Steinjr - As usual, sir, you just may be THE FOUNTAIN of knowledge as regards MN Transfer Ry/MN Commercial Ry. I grew up near Cleveland Ave. and Summit Ave. and I used to ride my bike over to the MN Transfer Ry.roundhouse (and Lake Nokomis, too, when Mom wasn't paying attention) so I know the area really well. Mn Transfer/MN Commercial Ry, I remember them delivering tank cars of Kaolin Clay for the paper printing business for Waldorf, now ROCK-TENN Bldg.
Regards, Jimmy
Jimmy
ROUTE ROCK!
Steinjr - SKOAL!, Das ist GUT! Bratwurst mit *** ist mein favorite!! at the MN State Fair. Fairchild RULES!!
For modelling the early sixties, if you fudged a few miles east to include the huge Koppers Coke plant in St.Paul (near No.10 on the map, Como Shops of the NP - now "Bandana Square" shopping center) you could include their 0-6-0 steam engines, which ran until I think 1964. I think a Proto USRA 0-6-0 would do the job, might need to change some detailing...I think their engines were ex-Soo engines.
Btw, I got a PM from another poster that was considering basing a layout on the MTRY, and did a little research between getting up and heading out for my train to work this morning.
Here is a recap of what I wrote in my reply to the other poster - if anyone has information to add, feel free to jump in.
steinjr Speaking of Minnesota Transfer - I did a couple of photo expeditions on foot and some bing'ing (http://www.bing.com/maps) along parts of the lines to look for inspiration for a model railroad, and I followed David Zuhn's excellent virtual map tour. Problem was that even though the Minnesota Transfer had an enormously cool traffic flow at the Midway yard in the 1940s and 1950s, with all the interchange traffic between the class 1s, modeling that traffic flow just did not translate very well at all into the space available to me (6.5 x 11.5 feet), and certainly not H0 scale, which was what I wanted. It would take a fairly big yard, lots of longish trains, and lots of staging to simulate in an interesting way classification and routing at the Midway Yard. Possibly could have been done in a reasonable way in Z scale (1:220) in the space I had available, if I had been hardheaded enough to axe all industry switching (or just simulating a little industy switching around the yard), but I suspect that even then it would have been a pretty hard sell in 6.5 x 11.5 feet. Coupled with the fact that I really wanted some local switching, and I wasn't hard headed enough back then to axe either the yard or the local switching - I wanted both, and H0 scale on top of that. There is also plenty of information available on the net (at David's web site, Bing and from my pictures) to make a modern switching layout based e.g. on the industries along MN-280 - say from the BNSF (ex NP) junction near Kasota Avenue north towards what is now the I35E underpass (ending around the area where Pascal Steel used to be). Or maybe the area from the I35E underpass and northwards up just past County Road C in Roseville, past Belt Line junction, running e.g. short trains of 7cars or so, maybe pulled by the Minnesota Commercial's CF7 "City of Bayport". But I really wanted something based on the 1950s, so I could run those cool old Alco diesels and 40-foot cars. I guess the area from the NP junction by Kasota Avenue then and North-westwards down along the Traffic Street NE (north side of Hennepin Avenue) would have been a good area in the 1950s, but I wasn't able (at the time I was considering a MTRY based layout) to locate much in the way of prototype pictures from the 1950s of MTRY switching operations in the area north of Hennepin Avenue. I also just wasn't, at the time, ruthless enough as a layout planner to axe the Midway yard totally and just do a Traffic Street based layout. Btw - these days that neighborhood is bounded (at the Western end) by Traffic Street east-west and the north-south Roosevelt Street, Taft Street, Wilson Street, Harding Avenue and Hoover Street, plus maybe Winter Street and Delano street, while the eastern end of that little switching branch crosses Hennepin Avenue and 33rd Avenue. Did a very quick search for addresses at the Minnesota Historical Society Visual Collection database, but the only thing a quick search unearthed was some 1931 photos of the Strong Scott Manufacturing Company at 451 Taft Street - where you can see a railroad spur along one of the buildings in a couple of the pictures. Here: http://collections.mnhs.org/visualresources/image.cfm?imageid=30853 The society has 759 images that are classified as Minneapolis NE - could be more there, of course. Search: http://collections.mnhs.org/visualresources/Results.cfm?Page=1&Subject=Minneapolis. Northeast. Anyways - maybe you can carry off a good design - I still think the MTRY had enormously cool engines and a cool traffic flow, and would love to see a good design based on their setup some day. Either a switching setup based on one of the three areas I mentioned (or somewhere else), or a sorting/routing setup based around Midway yard (or both if someone has a big basement for a setup with plenty of staging) :-)
Speaking of Minnesota Transfer - I did a couple of photo expeditions on foot and some bing'ing (http://www.bing.com/maps) along parts of the lines to look for inspiration for a model railroad, and I followed David Zuhn's excellent virtual map tour.
Problem was that even though the Minnesota Transfer had an enormously cool traffic flow at the Midway yard in the 1940s and 1950s, with all the interchange traffic between the class 1s, modeling that traffic flow just did not translate very well at all into the space available to me (6.5 x 11.5 feet), and certainly not H0 scale, which was what I wanted.
It would take a fairly big yard, lots of longish trains, and lots of staging to simulate in an interesting way classification and routing at the Midway Yard. Possibly could have been done in a reasonable way in Z scale (1:220) in the space I had available, if I had been hardheaded enough to axe all industry switching (or just simulating a little industy switching around the yard), but I suspect that even then it would have been a pretty hard sell in 6.5 x 11.5 feet.
Coupled with the fact that I really wanted some local switching, and I wasn't hard headed enough back then to axe either the yard or the local switching - I wanted both, and H0 scale on top of that.
There is also plenty of information available on the net (at David's web site, Bing and from my pictures) to make a modern switching layout based e.g. on the industries along MN-280 - say from the BNSF (ex NP) junction near Kasota Avenue north towards what is now the I35E underpass (ending around the area where Pascal Steel used to be).
Or maybe the area from the I35E underpass and northwards up just past County Road C in Roseville, past Belt Line junction, running e.g. short trains of 7cars or so, maybe pulled by the Minnesota Commercial's CF7 "City of Bayport".
But I really wanted something based on the 1950s, so I could run those cool old Alco diesels and 40-foot cars.
I guess the area from the NP junction by Kasota Avenue then and North-westwards down along the Traffic Street NE (north side of Hennepin Avenue) would have been a good area in the 1950s, but I wasn't able (at the time I was considering a MTRY based layout) to locate much in the way of prototype pictures from the 1950s of MTRY switching operations in the area north of Hennepin Avenue.
I also just wasn't, at the time, ruthless enough as a layout planner to axe the Midway yard totally and just do a Traffic Street based layout.
Btw - these days that neighborhood is bounded (at the Western end) by Traffic Street east-west and the north-south Roosevelt Street, Taft Street, Wilson Street, Harding Avenue and Hoover Street, plus maybe Winter Street and Delano street, while the eastern end of that little switching branch crosses Hennepin Avenue and 33rd Avenue.
Did a very quick search for addresses at the Minnesota Historical Society Visual Collection database, but the only thing a quick search unearthed was some 1931 photos of the Strong Scott Manufacturing Company at 451 Taft Street - where you can see a railroad spur along one of the buildings in a couple of the pictures.
Here: http://collections.mnhs.org/visualresources/image.cfm?imageid=30853
The society has 759 images that are classified as Minneapolis NE - could be more there, of course. Search: http://collections.mnhs.org/visualresources/Results.cfm?Page=1&Subject=Minneapolis. Northeast.
Anyways - maybe you can carry off a good design - I still think the MTRY had enormously cool engines and a cool traffic flow, and would love to see a good design based on their setup some day.
In that 700+ pile of hits from the Minnesota Historical Society I found quite a few good pictures of businesses a little further west, but I didn't spot much on the businesses served by the MTRY north of Hennepin Avenue i NE Minneapolis in the 1950s or 1960s or so.
Anyone else have more info to add on this area, or some more thoughts on modeling the MTRY. No - I am not going to switch prototypes again - I am just curious :-)
Grin, Stein
I wonder if our friends at Atlas might do some Alco's in MN Transfer Ry. lettering someday?? They're doing a Minnesota Commercial engine now, the RR that took over from MT Ry. so it shouldn't be that far-fetched...heck, they've done some pretty small railroads in the past.
Yup!, Still GOOD stuff to model on Hiawatha Ave. Grain traffic rules!. Gotta love the intersection at 46th and Hiawatha as well as light rail on the other side of the street!.