Wednesday, October 6, 2021

1907+1985 St. Paul, MN: BNSF/Great Northern/St. Paul & Pacific Railyards and Minnesota Transportation Museum

Jackson Street and Museum: (Satellite, the yard used to go between Rice and today's L'Orient Streets)
Dale Street Shops: (Satellite, it is now container storage)
Contemporary Yard: (Satellite) (ToDo: move "contemporary yard" to Union Yard.)

Mark Mcgowan posted
The St. Paul & Pacific yard in Minneapolis in 1874. This was the predecessor to the Great Northern. The freight depot is to the left and the passenger depot at center. I'm uncertain about the structure at right with the train in it. Anyone know?
[Some comments called it a coaling tower. But Richard got it right.]
Richard Stern: Pretty sure it’s a grain elevator. The train is just sitting there until the others clear and it can move over to a station track. Note the same track it’s sitting on also serves a freight house loading dock. [So was the building in the center the freight house and the building on the left was the depot?]

When I noticed that the turntable was still present on a satellite map, I looked closer and found the roundhouse has been preserved as a transportation museum.
1951 St Paul East Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

Marty Bernard posted
1. Switch engine at the Great Northern Jackson Street Roundhouse in St. Paul. March 9, 1948.
Photographs and captions from the Minnesota Historical Society
Stephen Phillips: Great Northern No.94, class A-9 , 0-6-0 . (56) were built by the GN Shops , Baldwin and Rogers between 1903 and 1912. The round builders plate on the smoke box would indicate that the 94 was a Baldwin grad.
GN , No.386 , class A-9 0-6-0 , (20) built by Baldwin 1912.
Dennis DeBruler: The caption allows me to update my notes with the proper name of a yard. And the photo provides the bonus of a coaling tower.

Rick Shilling posted
1950 Great Northern Railway 2-8-8-0 Locomotive #2015 sitting outside of St. Paul,  Minnesota Roundhouse.

Marty Bernard posted
2. Switch engine at the Great Northern Jackson Street Roundhouse in St. Paul. March 9, 1948.
Photographs and captions from the Minnesota Historical Society
[I think the roundhouse is in the right background.]

A little further West was their Dale Street Yard. The buildings indicate that it was backshops.
1951 St Paul West and East Quadrangles @ 1:24,000

Marty Bernard posted
1. Dale Street Shops of the Great Northern Railroad, Saint Paul, MN circa 1920. Photographs and captions from the Minnesota Historical Society.
Eric Hopp: That really doesn’t look right for Dale Street.
Ryan Heath: This looks right for the 1st roundhouse at Jackson Street. This view would be looking south across the mainlines towards downtown St Paul.
Ryan Heath: The Jackson St bridge would be to the right and the current roundhouse would be to the left.

Photo via SaintPaulHistorical

Photo via SaintPaulHistorical
Great Northern Railway Photographer: Charles P. Gibson Date: Approximately 1925 Image courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

Update: a better exposure:
Marty Bernard posted
4. Great Northern Railway, Dale Street Shops, St. Paul circa 1925.
Photographs and captions from the Minnesota Historical Society
Tom Lyman: R to L Industry lead, WB, & EB, Passenger mains, WB, & EB, Freight mains, Como Yd. switching lead, rest of the tracks are into Dale St. Shops.


By the 1950s, the original yard was probably used for passenger train coaches and freight was handled by the yards in Minneapolis. Today's Bridal Veil-BNSF Yard is a remnant of those freight yards. As we would expect, that yard handles containers. Although I could not find the tracks on which the containers are transloaded. But I did find empty platform cars, empty chassis and trailers and containers in storage. While looking at Google Maps, I learned that the northern part of this GN yard is now a Union Pacific Yard. What kind of trackage rights does UP have to get here?
1951 St Paul West Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

The tracks in this yard have been relocated on the east side. The tracks across the top were GN and the tracks along the bottom were Milwaukee. I saw a label on a USGS map that implies that this classification yard was also GN. It probably also handled interchange between GN and Milwaukee.
1951 St Paul West Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

I found some cabooses at the museum.

safe_image for Photo via Saint Paul Historical

Dennis DeBruler commented on his caboose post
I think this might be the one that is on static display at the Minnesota Transportation Museum.
44°57'46.1"N 93°05'41.5"W

Dennis DeBruler commented on his caboose post
Street View

Dennis DeBruler commented on his caboose post
They appear to have another one preserved inside their GN roundhouse and you can tour the interior of that one.
Jul 2013 photo posted by Bernie Morodorski on Google Maps.

Minnesota Transportation Museum / Osceola & St. Croix Valley Railway posted
NP 105 repaired & ready. GN 325 restored & ready. MTM volunteer crews do amazing work!

5:40 video

The roundhouse was built in 1907, closed in 1959 and restored after the museum purchased it in 1985. [trains]



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