The Royce Files

  BNSF 87 carries the name Skagit River and has been a track measurement car from at least since 2006. I found it in Fargo on cool late winter afternoon sitting on the mainline (former Northern Pacific) about a quarter mile from Dakota division HQ. These tracks parallel Main Ave through Fargo on the north side of the road. This car is former a Southern Pacific bi level commuter coach 3702 built in 1955 by Pullman. In 1985 this coach along with a few of its 'brothers' in the low 3700 series of bi-levels were sold to excursion line Transcisco Tours . 3702 was renamed Donner Lake for their Sierra 49er Express. Transcisco Tours did not do well financially.  In the early 1990s Burlington Northern grabbed up a handful of these bilevel cars from Transcisco to rebuild and put into their business fleet. As this point 3702 was renamed Skagit River, given the number  BNA 33  and painted in Burlington Northern business livery. It took on the aluminum look following the BNSF merg...

  The story of the 353 goes back to 1971 according to the Rollag 50th year show book. It was purchased and then a little over 10 years later it was ready to move on Rollag's Steamer Hill. A lot of volunteer hours went into restoring the engine and laying out the track and grade on the show ground. The 353 is a former Soo Line and then ran in private service for a few years until it wound up at the Minnesota Transportation Museum. It is at that point some Rollag fellows found out about it and convinced the Rollag show that a full-size engine around the grounds would be a great attraction. They were right. This train to no-where circles the grounds and carries hundreds, maybe even thousands of guests, each year during Labor Day weekend.  On the grounds, the train passes 3 depots- the former Hickson, ND depot, the former Hitterdal, MN depot, and the Baker MN depot. There might also be the remains of the Buttzville, ND depot but I am not sure. The building that is used as a restro...

I found some additional photos of the BNSF 1885, a SD40-2 with a snoot nose that plies the yard in Fargo and occassional pulls a train west and visits Northtown Yard. That distinctive snoot and blueboonet  freightbonnet* Santa Fe scheme makes it easy to spot. I think I took these from Great Northern Drive near the throat of the yard.  Formerly SF 5121 and then BNSF 6805 after the merge. Built in November  1979 with builder number  786223-7. On the Santa Fe this engine saw time out west in California then made its way to the Midwest in the early 2000s and then to Minnesota and North Dakota around 2010. Sometime between spring 2019 and Fall of 2021, the BNSF 1885 was repainted in what looks like the H4 scheme (see here  BNSF 1885 in Oct 2021 ). Looks like they added an air conditioning unit or two too. From the angle of the photo I cannot tell if they reduced the nose size as well. *It came to my attention that bluebonnet was a color scheme only on passenger engin...

Last year's family fall tour included part of Minnesota's Iron Range. There are 4 distinct ranges in the state-Cuyuna, Mesabi, Vermillion, and Gunflint. They extend from Crosby, just east of Brainerd, to the tip of the Arrowhead of NE Minnesota. The Gunflint actually continues into Canada. I have been to all four. There a handful of museums dotted throughout the region. Only the Mesabi range has any active mines. In Mountain Iron, there is a small park near a former pit mine. According to the interwebs , iron ore was first discovered near the park. In the park there is a display of some old mining equipment. Under a canopy sits an old switch engine that is marked for the Oliver Iron Mining Company. You can actually climb up on it and go into the cab. Some local youths were occupying the cab so we just climbed around the boiler.  It is a Baldwin 0-8-0 built in 1910 that originally served the Duluth, Missabe, and Northern Railroad. Oliver Iron Mining Company acquired the engine i...

West of of Dilworth yard  a few miles, the BNSF mainline makes its way into Moorhead and then over the Red River into Fargo. I captured these somewhat boring shots of grain hoppers off of US 10 not far from Moorhead High School on a frigid afternoon. They were sitting still but there was an approaching train heading west on the adjacent track.    Going west just about a mile you encounter a large junction referred to as Moorhead Junction.  Dilworth was a former Northern Pacific yard on the Staples sub-division of the St Paul division. It was also the point where the Fargo division began. I seem to recall that unit trains of coal from the Powder River basin were routed over these lines. It was in an article from an old Trains magazine I had lying around.

Northern Lines Railway is a little short line out of St. Cloud. While I was at the Granite City Train Show last year at the Armory, I noticed these GP7s parked in the yard out back. I was unaware of who these belonged until now. The paint schemes on 1411 and 1602 are definitely Burlington Northern and possibly the former owner of those engines. The 400 seems like a familiar paint maybe Indiana Harbor Belt or Bessemer Lake Erie. However I have found nothing exactly resembling it. This is all the power which the short line uses over its 25 miles of trackage between St. Cloud and Collegeville to the west and Rockville to the south. There are a few videos out there of the 1511 and 400 in action.   

Fargo is a rail town. A rail town with a former commercially navigable river. Fargo came upon the scene when the Northern Pacific sought out a place to cross that river while forging a northern transcontinental rail link. I have said elsewhere in the blog that Fargo was served by 3 railroads- Northern Pacific, Great Northern, and Milwaukee Road. It lessened to 2 in 1970 with the merger that created the Burlington Northern. And then just 1 in the 1980s when Milwaukee Road finally gave up the ghost and the abandoned the branch line that went right by my house and workplace. Northern Pacific's and Great Northern's main lines cut through downtown on their way west. The GN's mainline veered northwest as it exited the edge of downtown. They main yard was placed out there a little south and west of NDSU. It is still in use by BNSF, although not quite as busy. Below are some photos taken from the 12th Avenue bridge back in May as I was returning from a stint volunteering fo...

The DMIR once served Duluth and the region Actually there are more than 2 railroads operating in Duluth and Superior. At one time there were 11. But that is entirely different topic. Just next to I 35 sits the Lake Superior Railroad Museum This post is going to focus on the 2 passenger railroads in Duluth. Yes, there are 2. Most know the North Shore Scenic Railroad that has its headquarters at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum .Their operation is top notch and features numerous excursions throughout the year. Last year I rode a Pizza Train. It was a very memorable excursion up the North Shore from Duluth to a little bit past the French River. It of course included pizza and an onboard music performance. We sat in an old Northern Pacific coach and then sat in a double decker Chicago Northwestern commuter car. GE 50T Industrial Switcher as seen from safari car Perhaps the lesser known of the passenger railroads is the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad but that is...

With this week starting out with Veterans' Day I think this would be an appropriate video to re-post from the Tube. It is an informative film concerning an air attack on a military train. 2 P-51s bomb the railroad and the train crew responds albeit without eliminating the enemy aircraft. You may think it is odd that that US planes would bomb a US military plane but I doubt anyone was ready with cameras to film an actual attack. The aid response was particularly quick- but what can you show in 4 minutes. Once the trucks arrived they went right at it to restore the railbed.

Lionel log dump car with the Switch Tower in background I wanted to have some action on my railway besides just going in circles. Lionel makes quite a few operational cars. I featured the milk reefer a few weeks. I doubt I will ever get that one to work. It is a long range plan. So I found this Northern Pacific log dump car from 1984 on e-bay in practically new condition. Even came with the box for less than $30. I was planning on getting a version of this car at one of the local antique shops for less than $20. However, that one was broken. The log dump car basically holds a few logs and at the desired point- notably the place where the collection tray sits and the automated track piece sits- dumps the logs. Lionel has made these types of cars since the post-war period . Earlier versions were all metal. Its close relatives are the coal dump car and the helium tank dump car. These cars can be operated manually with the manual uncoupler thingie and ...

A distant train waits for the go ahead to cross the bloated Red River from Fargo. To understand flooding in the Red River Valley look here Another picture of trains and a historic flood in Fargo.

“A train is one of the most beautiful ways to see America as you move around the country.” -Al Roker, spokesman for National Train Day and weatherman May 10th marks the first ever National Train Day in the States and also marks the date of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. I am pleased, however there are no events scheduled in the Go for this day. (The closest is Rugby, ND. Not even the home of the Empire Builder, St.Paul, could muster up enough to celebrate.) For a city [the Go that is] that owes its existence to trains, I am a bit dismayed. 2 historical stations still exist in town. One designed by Cass Gilbert . But I guess this burgh is looking to the future. But shouldn't the future include trains? Will there be another great era for train travel? With gas prices on the rise, Amtrak ridership is up. I must admit I like the idea of train travel, however a few of our forbears of previous generations seemed to have dismantled the possibility of greater coverage ...