4449 thru St. Paul, Newport, and Hastings, MN

[oldoutboardjim]

I want to take my 88 year old dad to watch SP4449 as it runs from St. Paul to (across the river from) Hastings, MN on Saturday, 07/18.  My dad is not very mobile, so I would like to find a couple of places to park & watch it, and then get back onto Highway 61 and catch it again.  Some questions:1) Any suggestions re: good spots to view it (with good ingress back to Hwy 61)?2) Any idea if it will travel the "high line" (CP, nee Milwaukee Rd) or "low line" (BNSF, nee CB&Q) between Newport & Hastings?

Thanks in advance!

[TPWRY]

low line (BNSF)

[wjstix]

Sorry I didn't see this in time. I went to Tinucci's restaurant near Glen Road and 10/61. It was very impressive!! I thought about jumping back on 10/61 to follow it south but decided to go on ahead to the NP Hist Society Convention in White Bear Lake.

Funny thing is I was there before 8 a.m. and the Empire  Builder never went thru, normally it precedes any steam fantrips.

[Noah Hofrichter]

 Amtrak was way behind today. We heard the CP DS saying that 8 wouldn't be into the Cities until at least 1100, and it was about 2:30 when he finally made it to La Crosse.

4449 departed right at 0800 from what I gather and made a fast run down the BNSF. She looked pretty good all right.

Noah

[Boyd]

Crap! I missed it. Is it coming through this way again on its way back home? 

[Noah Hofrichter]

See http://www.261.com and check out the two items on the right side. It goes back to St. Paul on August 3 and it will actually be running in the St. Paul area for fall color excursions down the river in October before it heads back to the west coast.

Noah

[wjstix]

It's scheduled to arrive in Minneapolis at 6 PM on Aug 3rd, so probably will be thru my area (Cottage Grove / St.Paul Park) around 5-ish. I'm guessing it's having some "tune up" work done at 261's home in Minneapolis, since it's going to be there about a month before doing any running. BTW I noticed several of 261's Milwaukee-lettered cars in the consist Saturday going to Chicago.

I already have a ticket for one of the fall color excursions in Sept., going down the Mississippi to Winona and back.

[Boyd]

 On august 3rd does anyone know what time and route it takes coming through the Twin Cities? Call my cell phone [phone].

[wjstix]

http://www.sp4449.com/

[Boyd]

I saw it go past Daytons Bluff around 4:45 pm and got video of it on youtube. Will be a day or two before its cleared and up. My youtube id is mustangstrainsmowers.

[wjstix]

Ya it came thru earlier than I had anticipated given the 6 PM arrival time in Mpls. Lucky for the internet, when they tweeted that they "blew through Red Wing" rather than stop as 261 normally does for water, I figured we better get trackside pronto. Ends up they came thru Newport about 4:20 or so. I got some video, someday I'll figure out how to get Windows Vista to work with my old videocam so I can post clips!!  Several people showed up after it had gone by unfortunately, expecting it to come by later.