Whistle-stop tour planned for Minnesota Prairie Line
By Fritz Busch Journal Staff WriterWINTHROP - A three-day railroad tour of the 95-mile Minnesota Prairie Line (MPL) between Hanley Falls and Norwood-Young America gets under way Tuesday with stops in Arlington, Gaylord and Gibbon.
The whistle-stop tour's purpose is to raise awareness about the funding need to upgrade tracks and help spur economic development along railway line.
After years as abandoned track, MPL began operating in October 2002 on the former Chicago and North Western Railway.
Several companies including the Minnesota Valley Authority and Minnesota Central Railroad operated the line before the MPL was created.
Gene Short of Belview, a Minnesota Valley Regional Railroad Coalition (MVRRC) member and former Redwood County commissioner, will portray railroad tycoon James J. Hill on the tour.
Hill served as executive officer of a family of rail lines headed by the Great Northern Railway, which served much of the Upper Midwest, northern Great Plains and Pacific Northwest a century ago.
Considered a brilliant leader, Hill became known during his lifetime as the "Empire Builder."
At tour stops, Short in the guise of Hill will briefly describe how he built the Minneapolis, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway Co. - forever changing Minnesota freight railroads in the late 1800s.
Tuesday, Sept. 29 tour stops include Arlington, noon to 12:20 p.m.; the Fourth Street crossing in Gaylord, 1:30-1:50 p.m.; and just west of Main Street in Winthrop, 3-3:20 p.m.
Wednesday stops are near the Gibbon Community Center, 8-8:20 a.m.; at the Fairfax Depot, 10:30-10:50 a.m.; near the Franklin BP station, 12:15-12:35 p.m.; near the Morton MPL shop, 1:30-1:50 p.m.; and east of the Highway 101 crossing in North Redwood, 3-3:20 p.m.
Thursday stops include Delhi, 8:30-8:50 a.m.; the Belview Depot, 10-10:20 a.m.; Echo elevator 11:05-11:25 a.m.; Wood Lake elevator, 12:35-12:55 p.m.; Hanley Falls, 1:20-1:40 p.m.
Gibbon Fairfax Winthrop (GFW) and Sibley East students will attend the tour in Fairfax, Gibbon and Gaylord.
Last year, the Coalition asked the State of Minnesota for $10 million and received $4 million for its $80 million project to upgrade the railroad from 10-mph to 25-mph trains.
The State of Minnesota recently appropriated $2.5 million for the railroad upgrade.
The Coalition is working with local and regional economic officials and state and federal legislators to allocate more project funding.
At a current cost of $500,000 per mile to improve rail only, the rehabilitation project began at Norwood and has moved west to near Green Isle.
Rob Edwards of Winthrop, the MVRRC President, said the organization hopes to complete rail improvements all along the line by the end of 2011.
Edwards said the Whistle Stop Tour was created to increase public awareness of the publically-owned railroad, one of just two such railroad lines in Minnesota.
"We want people to understand that this is their railroad and it is a great economic tool for the region in and around the rail line," Edwards said.
(Fritz Busch can be e-mailed at fbusch@nujournal.com).
