The Great Northern Railway was an American Class I railroad. Running from Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington, it was the creation of 19th-century railroad entrepreneur James J. Hill and was developed from the Saint Paul & Pacific Railroad. The Great Northern's route was the northernmost transcontinental railroad route in the U.S.
The St. Croix River is a tributary of the Mississippi River, approximately 169 miles (272 km) long, in the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The lower 125 miles (201 km) of the river form the border between Wisconsin and Minnesota. The river is a National Scenic Riverway under the protection of the National Park Service. A hydroelectric plant at the Saint Croix Falls Dam supplies power to the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area.
The Canadian National Railway Company is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States.
Milwaukee Road 261 is a class "S3" 4-8-4 "Northern" type steam locomotive built by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) in Schenectady, New York in July 1944 for the Milwaukee Road.
The Soo Line Railroad is one of the primary United States railroad subsidiaries for the CPKC Railway, one of six U.S. Class I railroads, controlled through the Soo Line Corporation. Although it is named for the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad (MStP&SSM), which was commonly known as the Soo Line after the phonetic spelling of Sault, it was formed in 1961 by the consolidation of that company with two other CPKC subsidiaries: The Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway, and the Wisconsin Central Railway. It is also the successor to other Class I railroads, including the Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern Railway and the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. On the other hand, a large amount of mileage was spun off in 1987 to Wisconsin Central Ltd., now part of the Canadian National Railway. The Soo Line Railroad and the Delaware and Hudson Railway, CPKC's other major subsidiary, presently do business as the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP). Most equipment has been repainted into the CP scheme, but the U.S. Surface Transportation Board groups all of the company's U.S. subsidiaries under the Soo Line name for reporting purposes. The Minneapolis headquarters are in the Canadian Pacific Plaza building, having moved from the nearby Soo Line Building.
The Duluth, Winnipeg and Pacific Railway is a subsidiary railroad of Canadian National Railway (CN) operating in northern Minnesota, United States. A CN system-wide rebranding beginning in 1995 has seen the DWP logo and name largely replaced by its parent company. The DWP line is CN's connection between International Falls and Duluth, Minnesota, where the railroad connects to a short stretch of the former Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway before following the former Wisconsin Central to Chicago, Illinois.
The Weyauwega derailment was a railroad accident that occurred in Weyauwega, Wisconsin, United States, in the early morning hours of March 4, 1996. The derailed train was carrying a large quantity of hazardous material, which immediately caught fire. The fire, which involved the train cars and an adjacent feed mill, burned for more than two weeks after the actual derailment, resulting in the emergency evacuation of 2,300 people for 18 days, including the entire city of Weyauwega, with about 1,700 evacuees.
Montana Rail Link was a privately held Class II railroad in the United States. It operated on trackage originally built by the Northern Pacific Railway and leased from its successor BNSF Railway. MRL was a unit of The Washington Companies and was headquartered in Missoula, Montana.
The SD45 is a six-axle diesel-electric locomotive class built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division between 1965 and 1971. It has an EMD 645E3 twenty-cylinder engine generating 3,600 hp (2,680 kW) on the same frame as the SD38, SD39, SD40, and SDP40. As of 2023, most SD45s have been retired, scrapped or rebuilt to SD40-2 standards.
The North Shore of Lake Superior runs from Duluth, Minnesota, United States, at the western end of the lake, to Thunder Bay and Nipigon, Ontario, Canada, in the north, to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario in the east. The shore is characterized by alternating rocky cliffs and cobblestone beaches, with forested hills and ridges through which scenic rivers and waterfalls descend as they flow to Lake Superior.
The Lake Superior Railroad Museum is a railroad museum in Duluth, Minnesota, United States.
The Nemadji River is a river rising in Pine County, Minnesota, United States, which flows through Carlton County, Minnesota, and Douglas County, Wisconsin, to Lake Superior. The river is 70.8 miles (113.9 km) long measured from its source in Maheu Lake in Pine County, and 34.9 miles (56.2 km) from its confluence with the South Fork in Carlton County just east of the Minnesota-Wisconsin border. The Nemadji River empties into Lake Superior in an industrial neighborhood at Allouez Bay in the city of Superior's east-side neighborhood of Allouez and Wisconsin Point.
The St. Paul and Duluth Railroad was reorganized from the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad in 1877. It was bought by the Northern Pacific in 1900. Known as the "Skally Line", it operated from Saint Paul to Duluth, Minnesota, with branches to Minneapolis, Taylors Falls, Kettle River, and Cloquet, in Minnesota, and Grantsburg and Superior in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Central Ltd. is a railroad subsidiary of Canadian National. At one time, its parent Wisconsin Central Transportation Corporation owned or operated railroads in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia.
Cloquet Terminal Railroad is a small Class 3 terminal railroad operating 6 miles (9.7 km) of track in Cloquet, Minnesota. The railroad interchanges with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Canadian Pacific railroads in Cloquet and services the Sappi Paper Mill, a USG Ceiling Tile plant and a SMI Plant on the mill site. The railroad's shop and offices are located on Dunlap Island in the St. Louis River.
The St. Louis County Depot is a historic railroad station in Duluth, Minnesota, United States. It was built as a union station in 1892, serving seven railroads at its peak. Rail service ceased in 1969 and the building was threatened with demolition until it reopened in 1973 as St. Louis County Heritage & Arts Center . Train service also resumed from 1974 to 1985, by Amtrak.
The Arrowhead was a daily passenger train operated by Amtrak between Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin, in the United States. After two years of operation, service was extended from Superior to Duluth, Minnesota.
The Minnesota and International Railway was a subsidiary of the Northern Pacific Railway, a railway that operated in the western United States along the Canada–United States border. In 1970, the Northern Pacific merged with other lines to form the Burlington Northern Railroad.
At 4:25 pm on July 8, 1986, a 44 car Baltimore and Ohio railroad freight train, traveling at 45 miles per hour, bound south to Cincinnati, derailed near Miamisburg, Ohio, a small city with an industrial history in Montgomery County, southwest of Dayton. Fifteen of the cars derailed on a bridge; these were tank cars containing yellow phosphorus, molten sulfur and tallow. Carrying a chemical used to make rat poison, fireworks and luminescent coatings, one tank car caught fire. This resulted in emission of an estimated 1,000 foot (300 m) high cloud of phosphorus. A subsequent incident caused the largest train accident-triggered evacuation at the time in the United States. The accident was the second major rail disaster in Miamisburg within an eight-year period. On September 10, 1978, 15 cars of a Conrail train derailed.
