I am a closet Soo Line fan. Sadly, I did not know allot about the SOO Line or gathered interest until the CP Rail Takeover....sort of. I just learned this year that CP Rail owned I believe majority stock / interest of Soo Line?? Since moving to Saint Paul and railfanning Hoffman Yard mainly, I have gather allot of interest in Soo Line and CP Rail. Being that I am a foamer of the modernish era, most of my modeling focus is CP rail. I do plan to expand my Soo Line loco roster though in as progress on the layout moves forward. I am also a history buff, what can you tell us of the operations before CP Rail in the Saint Paul area? Traffic, Customers (I live less than a block from the line to the now doomed Ford Plant.....I need to get out there and take some pictures). Speaking of taking pictures of the doomed Highland branchline......How can one figure out the schedule of local runs. To me is seems sporadic at best.
Soo Info. Matt and others: The soo was owned 59% since it's existence by the CP although it charted a fairly independent course when you consider one of it's main connections out of the Twin Ports was the Duluth Winnipeg and Pacific a CN cousin. The operation out of St.Paul prior to the merger of the CGW into the CNW was fairly quiet with operations centered around a small, stub, ended yard at 7th St. with offices in a big, old, freight station ( which still stands ) minus the tracks in downtown St. Paul. There were a few down town industries warehouses along with a weird loop type interchange with the GN which came off the tail of a wye at West Minister Jct. and made a steep-down grade loop to the soo yard and some GN served industries. Even more strange is that to gain entrance into 7th St. from Cardigan Jct. to the north, the Soo Line had to operate through one of only two tunnels on the railroad ( the other to gain entrance to the former passenger depot in Duluth).It was double-tracked under West Minister Jct. to allow an arriving train from the north to run around their train and then switch out it out and spot industries often with the power north of the tunnel and the train in and south of the tunnel. As a result of the CGW/CNW merger, the Soo Line gained access to the large petro-chemical complex at Roseport south of the city and 7th St. yard became a real bottleneck with all the additional traffic which just happened to use a reverse switchback movement to get on to the BN to head south on trackage rights to Roseport. As a side note : the power in use during the 70's was F-unit "covered wagons), GP-7s, and SW type switch engines all in the red and white color scheme along with new EV cabooses and old wood cabooses. After the acquistion (no not merger ) of the Milwaukee Road, 7th St. yard was abandoned the tunnel filled/caved in and all operations moved to the Milwaukee St. Paul (not "Pigseye") yard . Later the Soo Line Shoreham yard was down graded to an intermodal yard and with the exception of Humboldt yard and what was left of the former MNS Golden Valley yard all Twin Cities opeations moved to the former Milwaukee St. Paul yard as is the case with now CP operations. Another oddity in the Soo Line St. Paul operation was a Rock Island interchange run form Rosemont on the RI to the then main Soo yard at Shoreham which ran with a Soo crew, Soo Caboose and any kind of Rock power including RI, UP and SP mixed power. Another side note: most railroads in the 60s, 70s, and 80s kept their locomotives fairly clean and painted with little dirt. I think the heavy weathering seen on models of these eras is often over done. All for now. Barry
WOW thanks for the info!! I now have a mission to research this area more!! I always thought that the SOO had larger operations in Saint Paul, very interesting....agiain Thanks. I will post some more questions here later.
