MN&S High Line

[conrail98]

Hey everyone,

I'm doing research on the MN&S High Line and know there was an article by Linda Sand in Model Railrioad Planning, 1998 called "Industrial Switching in N and HO", on a portion of the line. If anyone has a copy and is willing to scan or part with the issue, let me know. Thanks,

Phil

[wcfn100]

Wow, there's something I never expected to see on TRW.

I may have that article, I'll have to look.

The first things you want to do is join the MNSHistory and possibly the TwinCityRails yahoo groups.  The MNS groups isn't very active on it's own but has a bunch of files to look at including hand sketched maps, and the TCR group has mostly gone to Facebook.  But the Twin Cities has one of the most avid railroad fans you'll ever find and I'm fairly certain there's individuals who worked for either the MNS or SOO post merger.

If you haven't seen them, there's videos on youtube of the High Line.

If nothing else, try and get a hold of Greg Smith (he'll probably be on all those groups).  I know he can get you in touch with the right people as there are (at least as of a few years ago) still annual get togethers for the MN&S.

I grew up near the MN&S in St. Louis Park and used to railfan with my dad often.  I'm more partial to the north end and still have memories of watching them switch cars along Theo, Worth golf course.  But my ultimate memory will always be this bridge in St. Louis Park.



This is where the MN&S crossed over the parallel CNW and MILW lines west out of Minneapolis.  Lot's of my childhood was spent walking these lines.


Jason

[conrail98]

Thanks Jason,

I'm setting up resources for my dad who grew up along the MN&S in Bloomington and is looking at making a switching layout based on the High Line. He might even be a member of those groups, however, I'm attempting to gather info to work with a few people on a design we can build as a present to him. Thanks,

Phil

[wcfn100]

Comoshops.com has a couple of maps for the MN&S and the owner of Como Shops, John Luecke who is a fairly prolific author of MN railroads did one on the MN&S but I don't know how much info there is specifically on the High Line.

If I think of anything else, I'll let you know.  I also have a ton of pictures with a few on the High Line, but they are from Greg Smith so I'd want to ask him first before handing them over.

You didn't mention scale or year, but if it's HO, know that Athearn is doing the SD39.


Jason

[wcfn100]

Here's the three maps from Auto Club to Minneapolis.







I'm sure you could still trace much of that with Google maps.

Jason

[conrail98]

It's HO and the impetus is actually the Bowser Baldwin DRS-6-6-1500 which I guess would give the timeframe, most likely the late 1950s early 1960s. Thanks for the additional resources,

Phil

[conrail98]

Thanks for the charts! I went to the Sands' site and they had similar, but newer track charts,

Phil