Railroad Anniversaries

By Ken Buehler

A century and a half ago America was changing. A mostly rural, agrarian society was on the move. It was no longer the norm that one was born, lived and died within a 50-mile radius. Immigrants, hopeful for what would become the American Dream, arrived on all shores. A Civil War was over.

This nationwide change was being transported across the country on two ribbons of steel as the railroads stretched their tracks from coast to coast. Last year was the 150th anniversary of the completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad. This year is the anniversary of the second one chartered.

Federally chartered in 1864, the first spike wasn’t driven until Feb. 15, 1870 at Carlton, Minn., just outside of Duluth. The Northern Pacific Railway is 150 years old this year. Taking a northern tier transcontinental route, the NP struggled to meet expectations. It descended into bankruptcy three times on its cross country journey. Its “golden spike,” to formally finish the line, came in September 1883 when the construction crews from the east met their counterparts from the west at Gold Creek, Mont.

Today the Northern Pacific is a part of BNSF formed out of the Great Northern, CB&Q Railway, and SP&S to form the Burlington Northern and most recently the Santa Fe. The first three were part of the Hill family of railroads controlled by Minnesota rail baron and tycoon James J. Hill. Hill’s Great Northern completed its transcontinental journey in 1872.

Pieces of history from all those railroads populate the collection of artifacts in the care of the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in the St. Louis County Depot where your ride today began. The first thing most visitors see when they walk into the museum are two Northern Pacific steam locomotives, the Minnetonka and the #2435. The smaller 0-4-0 was one of the original four engines the NP purchased to start construction of the line. They were the Minnetonka, Itasca, Ottertail and St. Cloud, one of which was shipped around Cape Horn to begin building from the west coast.

Interesting that also in the collection of the museum is the LAST engine purchased by the NP prior to the 1970 merger that formed the Burlington Northern. It is #3617 and 3,600hp SD45. In between those two engines the museum has a pair of giant NP wrecking cranes, several passenger coaches, some freight equipment, a caboose, an RPO car, two snowplows and those two steam engines that greet our guest/visitors.

If you did the math in this story you figured out this is also the anniversary of the NP’s first successor railroad the Burlington Northern celebrating its 50th anniversary.