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Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: June 8th, 2020, 12:42 pm
by 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?

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: June 8th, 2020, 2:50 pm
by 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?).

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: June 8th, 2020, 2:57 pm
by 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.

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: June 8th, 2020, 3:25 pm
by 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.

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: July 12th, 2020, 10:32 pm
by 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.

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: October 9th, 2020, 2:16 pm
by 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.

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: February 17th, 2021, 12:23 pm
by 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.

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: February 18th, 2021, 11:41 am
by phop
Would make for a very scenic extension to the Gateway trail.

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: February 18th, 2021, 12:17 pm
by 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.

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: March 7th, 2021, 5:16 pm
by DanPatchToget
There was a train derailment on CP's Paynesville Subdivision in Plymouth between I-494 and Northwest Boulevard. Around a dozen cars off the tracks. The locomotives didn't derail and there's no injuries. Not sure how fast they were going. I think max speed on that segment is 40 mph?

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: March 7th, 2021, 10:48 pm
by Trademark
There was a train derailment on CP's Paynesville Subdivision in Plymouth between I-494 and Northwest Boulevard. Around a dozen cars off the tracks. The locomotives didn't derail and there's no injuries. Not sure how fast they were going. I think max speed on that segment is 40 mph?
Would be interesting to know what the cause is. Was the infrastructure underinvested? Imma have to keep an eye out for the report on this after they have a review.

Glad everyone's safe. I saw there was liquid sulfar in there.

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: March 8th, 2021, 9:26 am
by DanPatchToget
From what I've read the likely factor was an unstable roadbed since this happened in a wetland. Add in snowmelt and it may have caused the track to shift just enough to cause this derailment. I doubt the rails were the cause. While CP may be cheap, they wouldn't let a busy mainline deteriorate.

They've been working all night to repair the track since I read just now a freight is slowly going through the derailment site.

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: March 19th, 2021, 7:57 am
by DanPatchToget
The Minnesota Transportation Museum and Canadian National (owner of the Dresser Subdivision between Withrow and Dresser) announced the line will remain open and MTM will be operating trains for the 2021 season.

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: March 22nd, 2021, 10:16 am
by DanPatchToget
Canadian Pacific is buying Kansas City Southern for $25 billion. CP's US headquarters will move from Minneapolis to Kansas City, but no word yet on what the job situation will be in downtown and general rail operations in the Twin Cities.

https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis ... 600036971/

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: March 22nd, 2021, 2:07 pm
by Korh
I know some people on a other forum I go on where talking about this discussing if this will go through or get blocked like when cp and cn tried to merge and if it does what it'll mean for the other class Is to have one company that spans the continent north south.

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: March 22nd, 2021, 7:08 pm
by mulad
"USMCA railroad" doesn't have quite the same ring to it as "NAFTA highway."

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: March 22nd, 2021, 9:53 pm
by mister.shoes
A quick glance (followed by a long look) at the map of the merged system shows just how centrally-located the Twin Cities are. Equidistant (roughly) from the coasts and directly north of the longitudinal spine. As always, Chicago is the middle of everything and CP does have trackage/haulage rights between there and Detroit, but I can imagine the other Class 1s being less-than-thrilled to make shortcuts like that one easy for CP given its new role as the 800lb gorilla.

Speaking of shortcuts, a more direct route from MSP to KC looks like a pretty massive gap in the system.
railcanadiankansas_01.png.jpeg

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: May 13th, 2021, 5:56 pm
by DanPatchToget
Looks like Canadian National has won with their "superior" bid for Kansas City Southern.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/kansa ... atest_news

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: May 14th, 2021, 8:05 am
by mulad
CN is less visible in MN, since their main line passes through Duluth rather than the Twin Cities. Their Wisconsin Central subsidiary has a line that roughly parallels Union Pacific's line to Eau Claire, but runs about 10 miles north of it and runs through Chippewa Falls before reaching the CN main line in Owen, WI.

My view of CN is fairly negatively colored by the actions of their former CEO E. Hunter Harrison, who had done a lot of work to make the railroad operate as profitably as possible by taking efficiency to the extreme, such as running very long trains that made scheduling very inflexible and negatively impacted passenger services and drivers at road crossings, though many of the things he pushed have percolated through the industry now, and he had ended up running CP for a while too, after maneuvering to push out their former leadership.

CN does seem like a better fit with KCS in terms of how their rail systems link up, but these mega-mergers definitely give me heartburn.

Re: Freight Rail News and Happenings

Posted: May 14th, 2021, 9:00 am
by MNdible
Doesn't it seem like the CN deal will be harder to pass through anti-competition scrutiny since they already have a north-south connection through the US?