Great Hinckley Fire
According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press 1964 publication "The Story of Minnesota" by staffer Jerry Fearing, the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad Steam Locomotive No. 4 was heading south to St. Paul from Duluth with 400 passengers aboard when the train arrived at Hinckley, Minnesota in the middle of the historic Great Hinckley Fire of 1894. The train's engineer James Root and his crew rescued several people escaping from the fire and quickly reversed course racing through flames heading back north toward Duluth stopping at a swamp that locals called "Skunk Lake," now marked as a historical site on the Willard Munger State Trail (see below). The location thereupon is about 4.5 miles north of Hinckley and about 8.5 miles south of Finlayson, Minnesota. At that site, the crew, the escapees and the passengers took a respite and cooled off in the water on that fateful day.
Root suffered cuts from flying glass that came from bursting locomotive and passengers car windows in the intense heat. The engine was in reverse, so its cars were in front of the open rear of the cab on his steam locomotive. Therefore, smoke, flames, embers, and debris would come directly into the cab without protection. Today, locomotives are required to have a fully enclosed cab for safety.
Witnesses reported that upon arrival at "Skunk Lake," Root was incoherent and nearly unconscious from smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion. He also was severely burned when the engine, its coal tender and other cars were damaged when passing through the inferno. Note that over 400 people were killed in the wildfire, an amount close to the number of souls originally aboard engine No. 4 that day before Root took on several escapees before heading back north. Root's and his crew's heroic efforts that day perhaps reduced the death toll by as much as 50 percent.
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.
BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, 33,400 miles (53,800 km) of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that provide rail connections between the western and eastern United States. BNSF trains traveled over 169 million miles in 2010, more than any other North American railroad.
The Burlington Northern Railroad was a United States–based railroad company formed from a merger of four major U.S. railroads. Burlington Northern operated between 1970 and 1995.
The Northern Pacific Railway was an important transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the western United States, from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest. It was approved and chartered in 1864 by the 38th Congress of the United States in the national / federal capital of Washington, D.C., during the last years of the American Civil War (1861-1865), and given nearly 40 million acres of adjacent land grants, which it used to raise additional money in Europe, for construction funding.
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 Chicago and North Western was a Class I railroad in the Midwestern United States. It was also known as the "North Western". The railroad operated more than 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of track at the turn of the 20th century, and over 12,000 miles (19,000 km) of track in seven states before retrenchment in the late 1970s. Until 1972, when the employees purchased the company, it was named the Chicago and North Western Railway.
The EMD FP7 is a 1,500 horsepower (1,100 kW), B-B dual-service passenger and freight-hauling diesel locomotive produced between June 1949 and December 1953 by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division and General Motors Diesel. Final assembly was at GM-EMD's La Grange, Illinois plant, excepting locomotives destined for Canada, in which case final assembly was at GMD's plant in London, Ontario. The FP7 was essentially EMD's F7A locomotive extended by four feet to give greater water capacity for the steam generator for heating passenger trains.
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 Lake Superior Railroad Museum is a railroad museum in Duluth, Minnesota, United States.
The Willard Munger State Trail is a system of recreational trails between Hinckley and Duluth, Minnesota. The trail's three segments are the Hinckley to Duluth Segment, Alex Laveau Memorial Trail, and Matthew Lourey State Trail.
The Minnesota Northern Railroad is a Class III shortline railroad that operates over 224 miles (360 km) of track in northwestern Minnesota. The railroad is co-owned by KBN Incorporated and Independent Locomotive Service and is headquartered in Crookston, Minnesota.
The St. Croix Valley Railroad is a Class III short line railroad that operates over 36 miles of track in eastern Minnesota. The railroad is owned by KBN Incorporated jointly between Independent Locomotive Service of Bethel MN and Midwest Locomotive Services of Atwater MN, with the railroad headquartered in Rush City, Minnesota.
The Bruce Vento Regional Trail is a rail trail in the cities of Vadnais Heights, Gem Lake, Maplewood, and Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA.
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 Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad (MStP&SSM) was a Class I railroad subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the Midwestern United States. Commonly known since its opening in 1884 as the Soo Line after the phonetic spelling of Sault, it was merged with several other major CP subsidiaries on January 1, 1961, to form the Soo Line Railroad.
The following is a brief history of the North American rail system, mainly through major changes to Class I railroads, the largest class by operating revenue.
The following is a brief history of the North American rail system, mainly through major changes to Class I railroads, the largest class by operating revenue.
The Hinckley Subdivision is a railway line that connects the Twin Cities to the Twin Ports in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Historically owned by the Great Northern Railway until 1970 and then the Burlington Northern Railroad until 1995–1996, it is now owned by BNSF Railway. The line branches north from the Staples Subdivision at Coon Creek junction in Coon Rapids, MN, and ends at Boylston junction between Foxboro and Superior, Wisconsin. There, the tracks meet the Lakes Subdivision from north-central Minnesota that bring trains into the Duluth–Superior area.
The International Rail Road Systems was a Canadian short line railway company operating in the West Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia.
The Northern Pacific Depot in Finlayson, Minnesota, United States, is a one-story wood frame passenger depot built on the Northern Pacific Railway line in 1909 to replace an earlier smaller depot. The rail line was originally built by the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad in 1870. Its successor, the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad first located a depot in Finlayson in the mid 1880s. The line was acquired by the Northern Pacific Railway in 1900. In 1970, the line became part of Burlington Northern, which abandoned the line in 1977. Today, the former right-of-way is part of the Willard Munger State Trail.
