Freight Rail News and Happenings

[widin007]

Valley Park I'm pretty sure is the Shakopee yard. Which is interesting as the Shakopee yard has tons of users right there in town; Rahr, Certainteed, Anchor Glass and KEB just to name a few, not to mention the Savage docks as well. Any additional info about this?

[DanPatchToget]

Valley Park I'm pretty sure is the Shakopee yard. Which is interesting as the Shakopee yard has tons of users right there in town; Rahr, Certainteed, Anchor Glass and KEB just to name a few, not to mention the Savage docks as well. Any additional info about this?

The only other thing I heard was local shippers like the ones you mentioned would still be served, but instead of the train originating in Valley Park it would be somewhere else (Hoffman Yard? South St. Paul Yard?).

[MNdible]

Yeah, it took some digging online, but I think I figured it out.

Valley Park is in Shakopee, immediately west of the 169/101 split. Looks to be landlocked by industrial uses, so very little chance of it getting repurposed.

East Minneapolis is immediately north of the larger BNSF yard, just to the northeast of the Gopher Stadium. It would have access from Kasota Avenue, so I suppose there could be some redevelopment there? But probably single level light industrial/warehousing.

The Montgomery Subdivision looks like it splits off of the Mankato Subdivision just south of the Renaissance Festival grounds, and countinues south through New Prague on to Montgomery. It *seems* like this would be a good candidate for a rails-to-trails conversion, as you could make a connection from Montgomery over through Dundas and Northfield and then on to the Cannon Valley Trail, or over to the Saskatah Trail at Fairibault.

[widin007]

The only other thing I heard was local shippers like the ones you mentioned would still be served, but instead of the train originating in Valley Park it would be somewhere else (Hoffman Yard? South St. Paul Yard?).

I wonder if this is a pretty recent turn from UP, Xcel wasn't aware of this even I'm pretty sure, as just of a couple months ago they were seriously considering paying for an alternate route to their peaking plant there as the train switching can leave it inaccessible for hours. Interesting to see where this goes.

[DanPatchToget]

Twin Cities & Western is building a new siding in Chanhassen and Chaska. I'm guessing this is to replace the siding in St. Louis Park and Hopkins they'll lose due to Southwest LRT. From what I read the new siding will be between Bavaria Road in Chaska and Lyman Boulevard in Chanhassen.

[DanPatchToget]

The westernmost industry spur on the Luce Line, owned by Union Pacific, is now inactive with the rails out of gauge and a red placard just before the switch to get into the spur. I don't know if this is accurate, but I believe there are now only 4 active shippers on this line; 3 in Plymouth and 1 in Golden Valley. I wonder if a short-line railroad like Progressive Rail would be interested in taking over and maybe gaining more business, or if Union Pacific will keep running it until there are no more shippers.

[DanPatchToget]

Wisconsin Central, which is a subsidiary of Canadian National, filed a notice to the Surface Transportation Board for discontinuance of rail service on the branch line between Withrow, MN and Dresser, WI. This is the same rail line the Minnesota Transportation Museum uses for excursion trains. This doesn't mean the rail line will be abandoned, but will be considered exempt/out-of-service. As of now the MTM is unsure if/how this will impact their operations, but they're still planning excursions for the 2021 season.

Besides MTM's excursions this branch line was used occasionally by Canadian Pacific for transporting ballast from the rock quarry in Dresser.

[phop]

Would make for a very scenic extension to the Gateway trail.

[EOst]

Is this the route that goes through William O'Brien? Would tie in well to the plans to extend Gateway from O'Brien to Scandia.