BEERTRAINS!

BY KEN BUEHLER

There are passenger trains, freight trains, coal trains, grain trains and the MRF, which was what the DM&IR called their “Mixed Road Freight.” These trains ran from Duluth, through Proctor, across the Iron Range to Two Harbors and back carrying whatever the railroad needed to haul when it wasn’t pulling tons of taconite from the mines to the docks in Duluth and Two Harbors. All kinds of trains and all sorts of the cargo and the one train that delivered the most fun would of course be The Beer Train!

Throughout the years there were several brew haulers that worked the rails. One of the best known was in “Beer Town” itself, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, the Milwaukee Road, served a series of famous breweries located along Chestnut Street on the city’s North Side. The route was called the “Beer Line” and along its six point two miles of downtown track were the nation’s largest breweries; Schlitz, Pabst and Blatz. Pabst “Blue Ribbon”, Schlitz “The Beer that made Milwaukee Famous” and Mr. Valentin Blatz, a more humble brewer, just called his beer; “Draft Brewed Blatz.” Around the turn the twentieth century, and usually during the hot summer months, these three giants of the brewing industry would switch out upwards of 250 cars a day to the Milwaukee Road. More traffic per mile of track came from the “Beer Line” than anywhere else on the system.

But then the beer went flat in Milwaukee. Blatz closed down in 1959. Schlitz struggled up until 1981 and while Pabst is still available, “PBR Me ASAP,” its legionary brewery complex along the Milwaukee River is now apartments, a microbrewery and the Beer Line Café. Gone are the old Milwaukee Road tracks. They’re now a hiking path called the Beer Line Trail.

Duluth Brewing & Malt, Fitger’s and People’s breweries all had rail service in Duluth. Superior’s smaller Northern Brewery shipped most of its product south, as far as Milwaukee, by truck. The market for Duluth’s malted beverages was north to the Iron Range and most of the amber brew was shipped there by train.

Fitger’s had an edge. In 1890 they built the first mechanical ice plant in the State of Minnesota. That allowed refrigerator box cars to be brought up a spur line and into the brewery to be loaded with ice and beer for delivery to warehouses and bars across the Range and as far west as Montana. This was Duluth’s Beer Line!

Fitger’s took delivery of grain, hops, glass bottles and coal by rail and shipped out their finished product all on the Great Northern Railroad. Working the “Fitger’s Switch” was a sought after job by the railroad crews and timing was everything.

There were a couple of other stops along the way, the Duluth steam plant, the scrap yard in Canal Park, Marshall-Wells, the hardware wholesaler, some general merchandise docks and a grocer, Gamble Robinson. But what fun were they?

If the crew timed their work right they got to Fitger’s just as the whistle blew for lunch. Railroaders call that “going for beans.” At Fitger’s it meant free beer! A perk of working at the brewery was that every worker got a pint or two of brew with their lunch and they would often share some with the hungry and thirsty train crews. That’s a Beer Train!

Sadly, Fitger’s brewery closed on September 30, 1972. Today it’s a Four Diamond hotel, shopping area and home to a popular brew pub. The train tracks no longer reach into the complex, but pass along the lakefront below its back door. These are the tracks of the North Shore Scenic Railroad were we still run the Midwest’s ONLY Beer Train!

Twenty years ago this summer Fritz Wrazidlo with Rohlfing Distributors came up with the idea of inviting a then fledgling number of small, micro brewers to ride the train to share beer and their passion for brewing it with passengers along for the ride. Like the old days at Fitger’s, the Beer Train was back!

At first there were just a few craft brewers on board. Twenty years later it’s the “Whole Damn Train!” This year’s

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