Minnesota Railroads: History, Map, Iron Range & Today’s Network

Last revised: August 22, 2026

Minnesota railroads still mean two things at once: the Twin Cities as the Midwest’s door to the Pacific Northwest, and the Iron Range pouring taconite down to Lake Superior. James J. Hill’s Great Northern, the Northern Pacific, and the Milwaukee Road all aimed their transcontinentals through Minneapolis–St. Paul. The Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range made ore the other half of the story. Grain laterals filled every county in between. That combination produced one of the densest maps in the Upper Midwest—and, after 1920, one of the harder abandonment records. Roughly half the peak mileage is gone. What remains is still a major freight railroad state: four Class Is (BNSF, CPKC, Union Pacific, Canadian National), a thick short-line layer, Amtrak’s Empire Builder plus the newer daily Borealis to Chicago, and some of the best museum-and-excursion railroading between Chicago and the Coast.

This page is a full state overview: the first ten miles and the William Crooks, who built the transcontinental and ore map, what was pulled up, who runs freight in 2026, and where you can still ride. For trip planning only, see the dedicated Minnesota scenic train rides (2026) guide and the Minnesota railroad museums roundup.

On this page: At a glance · First railroad · Building the network · Iron Range & Duluth · Grangers & Twin Cities roads · Mileage · Today’s railroads · Abandoned lines · Passenger & tourist · Map · Related reading

Milwaukee Road F7 88-C Northern Pacific Rice Point roundhouse Duluth Minnesota September 1957

A Milwaukee Road F7 set, led by #88-C, layover at Northern Pacific’s Rice’s Point roundhouse in Duluth, Minnesota, September 1957. Fred Byerly photo. American-Rails.com collection.

At a Glance (Updated)

Topic	Notes
First railroad	St. Paul & Pacific (reorganized from the Minnesota & Pacific of 1857); first train St. Paul–St. Anthony, June 28, 1862, locomotive William Crooks
Peak mileage	9,114 route-miles (1920; Stover atlas tradition)
Modern freight network	About 4,271 miles; 19 railroads; ~3,659 freight-rail employees (AAR; mileage and railroad count 2023, employment 2022)
Share of peak remaining	Roughly 47%
Class I carriers	BNSF and CPKC (the two large mileholders), plus Union Pacific and Canadian National
Traffic identity	Originating metallic ores (taconite) by a wide margin, then grain and food products; Twin Cities and Duluth–Superior as overhead and interchange hubs
Amtrak	Daily Empire Builder (Winona, Red Wing, St. Paul Union Depot, St. Cloud, Staples, Detroit Lakes) and daily Borealis (St. Paul–Chicago via Winona and Red Wing, started May 21, 2024). Confirm current times before travel.
Commuter rail	Northstar (Minneapolis–Big Lake) ran 2009–January 4, 2026; replaced by buses. METRO Blue and Green light-rail lines remain.
Signature tourist / museum	North Shore Scenic / Lake Superior Railroad Museum (Duluth); Minnesota Transportation Museum (Jackson Street Roundhouse and Osceola & St. Croix Valley); Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 #261 (Friends of the 261, Minneapolis)

Mileage and carrier tables below combine historic research from this site with Association of American Railroads state fact-sheet figures and MnDOT rail-system pages. AAR notes that statewide totals exclude trackage rights while individual railroad mileages include them, so Class I plus short-line columns will not add to the statewide total. Treat current operating maps as living documents.

First Railroad: St. Paul & Pacific and the William Crooks

Minnesota’s railroad story is later than Iowa’s or Illinois’s—the territory was still filling in when Chicago already had a web of rails—but the first train is unusually well documented. On May 22, 1857, the territorial legislature chartered the Minnesota & Pacific Railroad to take up a federal land grant awarded that year. The Panic of 1857 starved it of capital. The company graded toward St. Anthony and accumulated ties; it never laid a useful main. In March 1862 the legislature handed the rights, free of old liens, to a successor titled the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad.

The locomotive arrived first. The 4-4-0 William Crooks—built 1861 at Paterson, New Jersey, and named for the road’s chief engineer, later a Civil War colonel—came overland to La Crosse, then up the Mississippi by barge behind the steamer Alhambra, landing at St. Paul on September 9–10, 1861. Rails and cars waited on the ice. Tracklaying on the ten-mile St. Paul–St. Anthony grade resumed in the spring of 1862. On June 28 the William Crooks hauled a ceremonial train: Governor Alexander Ramsey, other territorial notables, and about a hundred citizens left St. Paul about 2:30 p.m. and were back by 6:00. Regular service began July 2 from a tiny depot on the riverbank. St. Anthony is now part of Minneapolis; that ten miles is the seed of every Twin Cities railroad map that followed.

The St. Paul & Pacific did not stay independent. James J. Hill and his associates took control in the late 1870s, reorganized it as the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba in 1879, and in 1889–90 folded the Manitoba into the Great Northern Railway. Hill’s line reached Puget Sound in 1893 without a federal construction land grant on the western extension—the second northern transcontinental, and the one whose Empire Builder name Amtrak still carries. The William Crooks itself survived as a Great Northern relic; it is displayed today at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in Duluth, on loan from the Minnesota Historical Society.

Chicago Great Western F3A 115-A southbound freight Kenyon Minnesota September 1962

A southbound Chicago Great Western freight, led by F3A #115-A, rolls through rural Kenyon, Minnesota, September 1962. Rick Burn photo / Marty Bernard scan. Rick was standing on the Milwaukee Road bridge; both lines are long gone.

Building the Network: Four Grants and Two Oceans

The 1857 land-grant act sketched four east–west (and related) projects that later became real railroads, even though the original companies failed:

Minnesota & Pacific — St. Paul & Pacific / Manitoba / Great Northern (Twin Cities west and northwest)
Transit Railroad — Winona & St. Peter, later Chicago & North Western across southern Minnesota
Root River & Southern Minnesota — pieces of the Omaha Road and Milwaukee’s Southern Minnesota line
Minnesota & Cedar Valley — later Milwaukee Road central-Minnesota mileage

After the Civil War the map filled in from two directions. Chicago grangers pushed northwest to the Twin Cities and the wheat country beyond. From St. Paul, Hill and the Northern Pacific pushed west. The Northern Pacific was the first northern transcontinental, completed in 1883; it used Duluth and the Twin Cities as eastern springs. Hill’s Great Northern, finished a decade later, was the better-built and better-financed of the two, and the one that set the operating standard for the northern plains. The Milwaukee Road added a third Pacific Extension in 1909, much of it through southern and western Minnesota before it climbed into Montana—late, expensive, and the first of the three to come apart.

Duluth–Superior became the Head of the Lakes: NP, GN, Milwaukee, Soo Line, and the ore roads all touched the harbor. Minneapolis–St. Paul became the passenger and freight hub where transcontinentals met Chicago connections. The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy reached the Twin Cities from the south; the Soo Line (Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie) tied the cities to Sault Ste. Marie and, through Canadian Pacific ownership, to the rest of CP. Those alignments are why Minnesota still hosts two Class I north–south/east–west grids instead of a single fallen-flag ghost.

Duluth Missabe and Iron Range 0-10-0 91 Proctor Minnesota yard circa 1955

Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range 0-10-0 #91, one of the road’s huge switchers assigned to ore jennies, at the yard in Proctor, Minnesota, circa 1955. American-Rails.com collection.

Iron Range and the Missabe

Northern Minnesota is not granger country. The Mesabi, Vermilion, and later taconite ranges north of Duluth produced a railroad culture of heavy power, ore docks, and seasonal lake navigation that had more in common with Appalachian coal than with a southern-Minnesota grain branch. Two companies did most of the work: the Duluth & Iron Range (Charlemagne Tower, first ore to Two Harbors in 1884) and the Duluth, Missabe & Northern. They combined as the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range, long a U.S. Steel property, and became the classic Missabe Road of 2-8-8-4 Yellowstones, 0-10-0 dock switchers, and later SD9s and SD18s on taconite.

Canadian National bought Great Lakes Transportation—including the DM&IR—on May 10, 2004. The ore still moves; the reporting mark and the independent Missabe are gone. CN’s Minnesota mileage in AAR tables is modest (the former Wisconsin Central / Duluth–Chicago pieces plus the Missabe plant), but the tonnage is not. Metallic ores dominate both originated and terminated AAR traffic in the state. Great Northern had its own ore outlets; those GN Range lines are now BNSF. Tourist railroading inherited the Duluth–Two Harbors lakeshore as the North Shore Scenic Railroad, which is the public face of a freight story that is still running under CN paint.

Grangers and Twin Cities Roads

South and west of the Range, Minnesota was as overbuilt as Iowa. The roster:

Great Northern and Northern Pacific. After 1970 they were Burlington Northern, then BNSF (1995). BNSF’s Northern Transcon across Minnesota (Staples Subdivision and related) is still one of the busiest freight corridors in the northern United States. The Empire Builder uses it west of St. Paul (with the Fargo–Grand Forks dogleg off the freight main). NP’s Twin Cities–Duluth and western lines survive in the same family where traffic paid.

Milwaukee Road. Twin Cities–Chicago, the Southern Minnesota, the Pacific Extension through western Minnesota, and a web of grain laterals. The 1977 bankruptcy and 1980 retrenchment took the Extension and many branches; Soo Line bought the remainder in 1985. What Soo (later CP, now CPKC) kept is still a Chicago–Twin Cities freight and passenger corridor—the Borealis and the eastern Empire Builder ride it.

Soo Line. Twin Cities, Duluth, and the wheat lines of western Minnesota and the Dakotas. CP control, then the 2023 CP–KCS combination, makes today’s CPKC the other large Minnesota Class I beside BNSF. Shoreham Yard in Minneapolis remains a CP/CPKC landmark.

Chicago & North Western and the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha (“Omaha Road”). Winona–west, the Omaha’s Twin Cities–Sioux City–Omaha axis, and a dense southern-Minnesota grain map. Union Pacific took the North Western in 1995; UP’s Minnesota miles are concentrated in the southeast and the Twin Cities.

Chicago Great Western and the Minneapolis & St. Louis. Both reached the Twin Cities; both were absorbed by C&NW (M&StL in 1960, CGW in 1968); both have been largely erased as through routes. The Kenyon and Goodhue photographs on this page are tombstones. The Burlington Twin Cities line is the surviving southern approach that is now BNSF.

Harvest States SW1 860 former Milwaukee Road 1613 grain elevator Savage Minnesota August 31 1997

Harvest States SW1 #860 (built as Milwaukee Road #1613 in 1940) tied down for the weekend at the grain elevator in Savage, Minnesota, Sunday, August 31, 1997. American-Rails.com collection.

Mileage: Peak to Present

John F. Stover’s historical atlas tradition puts Minnesota at 9,114 route-miles in 1920—the number this site has long used as the peak. Agriculture plus three transcontinentals plus the Range produced a map that could not all pay once trucks and branch-line losses piled up. The live version of this page already noted that more than half the peak had come out, with something like 4,000 of those miles disappearing only since the mid-1960s. That reading still holds.

The Association of American Railroads Minnesota fact sheet (data year 2023, employment 2022) lists 4,271 freight-rail miles, 19 railroads, and 3,659 employees. MnDOT quotes the same 4,271 route miles and 19 companies. That is about 47% of the 1920 peak, or roughly 4,800 miles gone. AAR traffic for 2023 is the Range in numbers: Minnesota originated about 97.2 million tons / 1.20 million cars, led by metallic ores (55.7 million tons), then grain (14.8) and food products (8.9). It terminated about 71.9 million tons / 974,100 cars, again led by metallic ores (44.9 million tons), then coal (8.8), chemicals, grain, and intermodal. Iowa originates food and chemicals; Minnesota originates iron.

Minnesota historic railroad mileage chart

Historic Minnesota railroad mileage chart from the American-Rails.com research archive (click through for full size).

Today’s Freight Railroads

Four Class I railroads operate in Minnesota. BNSF and CPKC are the two large mileholders; UP and CN are smaller in miles but not in role (UP in the southeast and Twin Cities; CN on the former Missabe and Duluth–Chicago pieces). AAR mileages below include trackage rights and are for 2023:

Class I	Minnesota miles (AAR, incl. trackage rights)	Role (summary)
BNSF Railway	1,711	Former GN/NP/BN Northern Transcon, Twin Cities, and Range outlets; largest Minnesota railroad
CPKC	1,702	Former Soo / CP Twin Cities–Chicago and western Minnesota; Shoreham; Empire Builder / Borealis host east of St. Paul
Union Pacific	644	Former C&NW / Omaha southeastern Minnesota and Twin Cities
Canadian National	378	Former Wisconsin Central Duluth–Chicago corridor plus the Missabe ore plant (CN control 2004)
Class I total (AAR)	4,435	Not comparable 1:1 with the statewide 4,271-mile figure (trackage-rights convention)

Regionals and short lines (AAR Minnesota miles, 2023; confirm before operational planning) do the gathering the Class Is spun off:

Railroad	MN miles (AAR)	Role (summary)
Minnesota Northern Railroad	192	Northwestern Minnesota former GN/NP grain country
Twin Cities & Western Railroad	189	Former Milwaukee west from the Twin Cities (Appleton / Montevideo country); host for #261 excursions
Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern	140	Genesee & Wyoming regional; Minnesota fringe of the former C&NW / DME Dakota lines
Progressive Rail	97	Twin Cities industrial and southern-Minnesota short-line cluster
Minnesota Prairie Line	94	Former C&NW / Omaha-area grain (Minnesota Prairie Line / Buffalo Ridge related family)
Minnesota Commercial Railway	86	Twin Cities switching
Otter Tail Valley Railroad	81	Genesee & Wyoming; Fergus Falls–area former BN
Northern Plains Railroad	43	Northern Minnesota / Dakota grain (larger system in North Dakota)
Ellis & Eastern Railroad	40	Sioux Falls–area; Minnesota miles on the fringe
St. Croix Valley Railroad	36	Former BN north of the Twin Cities toward Hinckley / Hinckley-area plant
Red River Valley & Western	32	Mostly North Dakota; Minnesota connection miles
Northern Lines Railway	25	St. Cloud switching (former NP/BN, connects with BNSF)
Cloquet Terminal / Minnesota, Dakota & Western	4 each	Paper and industrial switching (MD&W is the former International Falls paper road)

AAR’s short-line column sums to 1,063 Minnesota miles on that include-trackage-rights basis. Holding-company names (G&W, Progressive, and others) move faster than encyclopedia articles; cross-check carrier pages and the MnDOT railroad-companies list before operational planning.

Chicago Great Western S1 13 near Goodhue Minnesota Rochester branch January 1964

Chicago Great Western S1 #13 near Goodhue, Minnesota, on the long-abandoned branch to Rochester, January 1964. Rick Burn photo.

Abandoned Lines (Selected)

Minnesota has been hit hard. The state lost on the order of 5,000 route-miles after the 1920s, most of it secondary agricultural track, with the big cuts concentrated after the mid-1960s. The Twin Cities and Duluth mains mostly stayed. What did not:

Chicago Great Western in Minnesota—including the Rochester branch (Goodhue) and the Kenyon line that once ducked under Milwaukee—came out after the 1968 C&NW merger. Almost the entire CGW Minnesota map is gone.
Minneapolis & St. Louis after the 1960 C&NW purchase; the Peoria Gateway’s Minnesota miles did not survive as a through railroad.
Chicago & North Western / Omaha Road grain laterals across southern and western Minnesota, sold or abandoned through the 1970s–1990s. Some fragments became Minnesota Prairie Line, Twin Cities & Western connections, or trails.
Milwaukee Road branches and the Pacific Extension. The Owatonna photograph on this page looks north along a line that is abandoned a short distance beyond the camera. Western Minnesota Milwaukee that did not become Twin Cities & Western came up after 1980.
Soo Line / CP light-density wheat branches, some of which reappeared as Northern Plains or other short lines, many of which did not.
Great Northern and Northern Pacific agricultural laterals off the transcons—enough of them that walking old grades is a statewide hobby, even though the mains are busier than ever.

AbandonedRails.com and county trail maps are the practical next step if you want to walk a specific grade. The 1909 map below is still readable from the air.

Chicago Great Western F3A 115A ducking under Milwaukee Road overpass Kenyon Minnesota September 1962

Chicago Great Western F3A #115A about to duck under the Milwaukee Road overpass at Kenyon with a southbound freight, September 1962. Note the Milwaukee motorcar overhead. Only traces of the bridge remain. Rick Burn photo.

Passenger Service & Tourist Railroads

Great Northern’s Empire Builder and Northern Pacific’s North Coast Limited were the name trains that defined Minnesota for travelers. The Limited is gone. The Builder is not. Amtrak’s Empire Builder still runs daily (Chicago–Seattle/Portland) with Minnesota stops at Winona, Red Wing, St. Paul–Minneapolis Union Depot, St. Cloud, Staples, and Detroit Lakes. Amtrak returned to the restored St. Paul Union Depot in 2014 after years at Midway; confirm the current station and times before you travel.

The important 2020s addition is Amtrak Borealis, a state-supported daily St. Paul–Chicago round trip that started May 21, 2024 (Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois DOTs, with FRA support). It uses the same CPKC-owned corridor as the eastern Builder, with Minnesota stops at Winona, Red Wing, and Union Depot, on a late-morning / evening schedule aimed at people the overnight Builder does not serve well. Equipment and exact times have already shifted; check Amtrak before you buy.

The old version of this page treated Northstar Commuter Rail (Minneapolis–Big Lake, opened November 16, 2009) as the start of a bigger Twin Cities commuter network, including a hoped-for St. Cloud extension. Ridership never matched the cost. The last Northstar train ran January 4, 2026; bus substitutes followed, and cities are looking at other uses for the stations (Anoka has discussed an Amtrak Empire Builder stop—not in service as of this writing, and it would need BNSF agreement). Twin Cities METRO light rail is the surviving urban rail: the Blue Line (Hiawatha, opened 2004) and Green Line (Minneapolis–St. Paul, opened 2014) are far more than the “12-mile section” this page once described. Extensions remain a regional political fight; they are not freight-railroad history.

Tourist and museum railroading is strongest at the Head of the Lakes and in the Twin Cities:

North Shore Scenic Railroad / Lake Superior Railroad Museum (Duluth Union Depot) — former DM&IR Duluth–Two Harbors lakeshore; dinner trains, fall-color trips, and steam when the museum’s power is available. The signature Minnesota ride. William Crooks is in the depot museum.
Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad (Duluth) — former NP riverside mileage; shorter scenic trips.
Minnesota Transportation Museum — Jackson Street Roundhouse (St. Paul) plus the Osceola & St. Croix Valley Railway (trains based at Osceola, Wisconsin, on the St. Croix; Minnesota organization). Como-Harriet Streetcar Line and Minnehaha Depot are the Twin Cities streetcar/depot pieces.
Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 #261 (Friends of the 261, Minneapolis) — returned to excursion service in 2013 after the 2010 sale from the National Railroad Museum. In July 2026 the Friends scheduled USA 250 / Hiawatha trips on the Twin Cities & Western (Chanhassen–Montevideo–Granite Falls–Appleton). Seasonal North Pole trips are listed on the Friends’ own calendar—confirm 261.com before travel.
End-O-Line Railroad Park (Currie), Duluth & Iron Range Depot Museum (Two Harbors), Kandiyohi County depot (Willmar), and smaller county collections.

Full seasonal schedules and operator links: Minnesota scenic train rides (2026) · dinner products: Minnesota dinner trains · museums: Minnesota railroad museums.

Duluth Missabe and Iron Range SD18 181 and SD9 162 Virginia Minnesota depot August 22 1966

Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range SD18 #181 and SD9 #162 run light past the depot in Virginia, Minnesota, August 22, 1966. Marty Bernard photo.

Historic Map

Minnesota railroad map 1909 near peak mileage

A Minnesota railroad map from 1909, near the pinnacle of the state’s rail density—transcontinentals, Range ore lines, and agricultural branches all on the same sheet. Author’s collection.

More Views from the Archive

Illinois Central Gulf GP11 8710 Albert Lea Minnesota end of railroad 1979

Illinois Central Gulf GP11 #8710 at the very end of the railroad in Albert Lea, Minnesota, 1979. This Paducah Geep began as Illinois Central GP9 #9330.

Milwaukee Road F7A 74C northbound freight Owatonna Minnesota February 1964

Milwaukee Road F7A #74C leads a northbound freight out of Owatonna, Minnesota, February 1964. This line is abandoned just north of the photo. Rick Burn photo.

Milwaukee Road SW1 952 and 953 eastbound freight Brownsdale Minnesota February 1964

Milwaukee Road SW1s #952 and #953 paused with their eastbound freight at Brownsdale, Minnesota, February 1964. Rick Burn photo.

Minnesota scenic train rides (2026) · Minnesota railroad museums · Minnesota dinner trains
Milwaukee Road 261 America 250 excursions (2026) · Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range
Fallen flags: Great Northern · Milwaukee Road · Soo Line · Chicago & North Western · Omaha Road · Chicago Great Western · Minneapolis & St. Louis · Burlington (CB&Q)
Granger railroads · Fallen flags hub · Railroad history
Class I railroads · Short lines · Amtrak · State history hub
Neighboring states: Iowa · Wisconsin · Illinois · all states

Sources

American-Rails.com original Minnesota state research (St. Paul & Pacific / William Crooks chronology, transcontinental and Missabe context, CGW/M&StL/Milwaukee abandonment notes, tourist/museum list)
Association of American Railroads, Minnesota state freight-rail fact sheet (2023 traffic and mileage; 2022 employment): ~4,271 miles, 19 railroads, 3,659 employees; Class I split BNSF 1,711 / CPKC 1,702 / UP 644 / CN 378; originated 97.2 million tons (metallic ores 55.7); terminated 71.9 million tons
Minnesota Department of Transportation, railroad companies serving Minnesota and Borealis passenger-rail pages (4,271 route miles / 19 companies; Borealis start May 21, 2024)
Stover, John F. The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads—9,114-mile peak (1920)
Minnesota Historical Society / Ramsey County and Saint Paul Historical material on the June 28, 1862 St. Paul–St. Anthony opening; William Crooks arrival September 1861
Hidy, Ralph W., Muriel E. Hidy, and Roy V. Scott with Don L. Hofsommer. The Great Northern Railway: A History—Manitoba / GN succession
STB and trade-press record of CN control of Great Lakes Transportation / DM&IR, closed May 10, 2004
Amtrak public timetables (Empire Builder and Borealis, consulted August 2026); Metropolitan Council / news record of Northstar’s last trip, January 4, 2026
American-Rails.com carrier and tourist profiles: Missabe, Great Northern, Milwaukee Road, Soo Line, 261 America 250, Minnesota scenic/museum/dinner pages

Minnesota state railroad page first developed in the American-Rails.com state-history series (circa 2008–2010) and revised over the years, most recently in a light pass dated September 7, 2024; substantially rewritten August 22, 2026 to replace 2019/2020 statistics with AAR 2023 / MnDOT figures, recast Canadian Pacific as CPKC, add CN’s Missabe ownership, add Amtrak Borealis, record the January 2026 Northstar shutdown, and update Twin Cities light rail, #261, and tourist/museum coverage while retaining the original transcontinental, Iron Range, and abandonment narrative.

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