Minnesota Transfer Railway maps from MNDOT

If you go to this link:

http://dotapp7.dot.state.mn.us/eDIGS_guest/DMResultSet/Index

and click on "Railroad Maps" on the left hand side, and then click one more time on "Railroad Name", you'll get a list of all of the railroads that have operated in the state. Scroll down until you hit Minnesota Transfer Railway and you'll see that there are 28 maps online. These are in both TIF (graphic image) and PDF format. There are some pretty interesting maps out there, some from 1919 and some from 1953.

The Library of Congress is slowly putting Sanborn Fire Insurance maps for Minnesota online, but they haven't gotten to St. Paul yet, which is where the Minnesota Transfer's main yards were located.

Happy browsing!

@edwardstd, Thank You!

Great resource, couldn't open the tif's on my Kindle and had trouble on my PC, but now found out how to work with them. The maps are great and details outstanding. Resolution is incredible, 22620 x 9342 or thereabouts!

Thanks again! Still need to find details on where exactly NP/CRIP interchanged through MTRY, but this is a great start.

NP-RI Interchange

Hi Bud,

The Rock Island ran transfers from their Inver Grove yard which as far as I know ran over the Milwaukee Road main line to Merrian Park, where the MT had their connection to the MILW. The NP had their own lines in the area. One of them ran from Northtown yard, crossed The Mississippi above Lowry Ave and ran jointly with the Soo Line through the “Hole in the Wall”, crossed the Great Northern and M&St.L, passed the GN depot and by the Main Post office, ran through the Railway Transfer, crossed the river again, ran past the Uof M(where they a connection with Milw’s Essex line), past the CGW yard and mills and crossed the Great Norther’s four track main at St. Anthony Tower by Raymond Ave on a bridge. There was a cut off into the MT yard here. The other NP route was their freight-only main line from Northtown Yard to the Q’s Dayton Bluff Yard on the far side of St.Paul. This is now the BNSF main line and has always been double tracked. This route had a connecting track to the MT where it crossed the MT line running up to New Brighton. Both these lines are very active today. In fact. This second option is the route used by Amtrak today and Amtrak runs through the Transfer’s yard.

this is a rough outline of what I recall but I’m going to check with a better informed friend as regards the Rock Island. The Rock had another option, though I don’t know how often they used it. They could drop their NP cars at Northfield, MN , about fourty miles south of the Twin Cities. From there the MN&S, a scrappy short line that also did a lot of industrial switching, ran directly to NP’s Northtown Yard, avoiding the Minnesota Transfer altogether. Northfield was a bustling little rail center served by four railroads and saw a lot of interchange business too. My better informed friend worked for the MN&S over twenty years and would know a lot more than I do about it.

That’s all for now. Don’t know if any of it helped but I can add to it later.

Barry P

@Grenzer47 Exactly what I was looking for!

Thank you for the information as I have been trying to piece together much of what you have now supplied in detail. Gives me a better focus on my plans.

To add to what Barry P (Grenzer47) said...

The Rock Island used the Milwaukee Road tracks to get from St. Paul to Minneapolis. Their passenger trains used the Milwaukee Road's depot on Washington Avenue and they had their own freight and fruit houses in Minneapolis that were on a spur off of the Milwaukee mainline. To get from St. Paul to Minneapolis, they would have gone right past the southern end of the Minnesota Transfer Ry's yard at Merriam Park as Barry mentioned. That would have been their freight connection to the Transfer.

Here is an image composed of two snippets from a 1912 Sanborn Fire Insurance map showing their freight house on the left and their fruit house on the right. At the extreme right is the connection to the Milwaukee Road mainline in south Minneapolis.

The next is from a 1915 valuation map and it more or less matches the 1912 map.

The third image contains two snippets from a 1952 Sanborn map. It doesn't show all of the tracks but it does show that the buildings have been reversed. The old fruit house is now the freight house and the old freight house is now a new, expanded fruit house.

The final image is a couple of 1956 aerial photo snippets that show the track arrangement has been changed a bit from the previous maps.

Although this doesn't deal with the Minnesota Transfer Railway directly, it does show that the Rock Island moved freight over the Milwaukee tracks, at least as far as this facility. It wouldn't have been out of the picture for the Rock to move cars a bit farther north to Railway Transfer, an M&StL subsidiary in downtown Minneapolis that connected with the Milwaukee, the NP, and the GN.

--- Tom

@edwardstd, again a big thank you

Good Stuff!

Minn Transfer Rwy.

Bud,

Minnesota Transfer Railway (Reporting Mark = MTFR) empire. Located in the SW corner of Minneapolis / St. Paul. At one time it was, AKA the Midtown yard. Today it is known as the "Minnesota Commercial Railway", (Reporting Mark = (MNNR).

http://mnnr.net/empire_map_x2.html

Charlie

@cslewis Nice Map!

Thanks!

MRFT

Bud,

 Are you also interested in it's history? If so, here are a few that I have found.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transfer_Railway

http://www.placeography.org/index.php/Minnesota_Transfer_Railroad_Yard%2C_Saint_Paul%2C_Minnesota

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/13/t/157484.aspx

http://www.thedieselshop.us/MinnTran.HTML

https://www.labellemodels.com/manuals/Minnesota%20Transfer.pdf

=========Minnesota Commercial Railway (MNNR)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Commercial_Railway

http://rrpicturearchives.net/locoList.aspx?id=MNNR

Charlie

@cslewis Great Stuff

The history helps to put the physical layout into perspective and identity specific locations to possibly model. Thanks!

Twin Cities Rail

Find a copy of October 1986 Trains magazine.  There is an article in the magazine by Steven Glischinski that has a map, photos and a bunch of information.

@Lee1234 Thanks!

I've had the Kalmbach page open in my browser for a couple of weeks now, wondering whether to pay the $10 to get it and now they are not shipping anything until the 21st. I think I'll have to bite the bullet and order it anyway.

Thanks again.

MInnesota Historical Society

http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00487.xml

@gna - Thanks!

The info just keeps coming and is much appreciated.

Midway Switching District

I can't find the article on the Minnesota Transfer's Midway Switching District, but I did find this historical publication that has some info on the MN Transfer:

https://publishing.rchs.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/RCHS_Fall1994_MCClure.pdf

Interesting stories about St. Paul's Midway district!

Lots of information about the streetcar system in addition to MN Transfer. Sometimes county historical societies can be treasure troves of otherwise hidden information.

@gna - Thanks again!

Good info in that article.

I got the book

  Its been on ebay for a loooooong time, they finally dropped the price.  So.......

it is self-published by the author, all of 56 pages.  Very limited in photos and drawings.  I hope to go cover to cover this weekend.

OMG - Thanks!

That is awesome! Thanks again!

Facebook Post, part of Midway Yard

Not sure if you're on Facebook, but someone sent me this:

https://www.facebook.com/BigEyeInTheSky360/posts/764361047228873

It's over the "A" yard in the map above. The road over the yard is Raymond Avenue.

@gna - Thanks yet again!

Great shot of the Midway or "A" yard of the MTRY in its current glory!