Minnesotan (passenger train)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Minnesotan was a passenger train run by the Chicago Great Western Railway, using the CGW's trackage between Grand Central Station in Chicago, Illinois and Saint Paul Union Depot in Saint Paul, Minnesota, via Rochester, Minnesota.

Begun as the Legionnaire in 1925, the train was renamed the Minnesotan in 1930, and was powered by a 4-6-2 Pacific-type locomotive. The Minnesotan was one of the finest passenger trains the Great Western operated; nevertheless, it could not compete against the other, more famous passenger trains of the Milwaukee Road or the Chicago and North Western.

The Great Western discontinued the Minnesotan as a named-train on May 10, 1949 but Chicago to St. Paul passenger service continued to linger on for several more years. By the early 1950s, a doodlebug or (later) a single EMD F-unit pulled a railway post office car, a baggage car, and a coach. This service was very spartan compared to the Minnesotan of less than a decade earlier, and ceased entirely on August 11, 1956.