| BNSF Railway St. Croix Subdivision |
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The St. Croix Subdivision or St. Croix Sub is a rail line operated by the BNSF Railway. It runs approximately 150 miles from La Crosse, Wisconsin to Saint Paul, Minnesota, following the Mississippi River. It runs through the communities of La Crosse, Onalaska, Brice Prairie, Trempealeau, East Winona, Fountain City, Cochrane, Buffalo City, Alma, Nelson, Pepin, Stockholm, Maiden Rock, Bay City, Diamond Bluff, and Prescott, Wisconsin.[1]
This section of track sees 40-50 trains a day. It is double tracked for most of the 150 miles with exceptions at Prescott, East Winona, and La Crosse.[2]
This route was operated by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad until that company merged with others to become the Burlington Northern Railroad. Two of the Burlington Route's merger partners had used this stretch of track to run their passenger trains between Chicago, Illinois and Minneapolis–Saint Paul for many years beforehand: The Northern Pacific Railway's North Coast Limited went on the CB&Q, as did the Great Northern Railway's Empire Builder. The Burlington's own Morning and Afternoon Zephyrs also used the line. In the late 1970s, these trains were typically running combined between Chicago and the Twin Cities. However, these trains stopped running on the St. Croix Subdivision in 1971 when Amtrak took over most passenger train service in the United States. The Empire Builder was the only one of these trains to survive, and it was shifted to run on the former route of the Milwaukee Road Hiawatha.