The Minnesota Transportation Museum (MTM, reporting mark

Reporting mark

A reporting mark is a two-, three-, or four-letter alphabetic code used to identify owners or lessees of rolling stock and other equipment used on the North American railroad network. The marks are stenciled on each piece of equipment, along with a one-to-six-digit number, which together uniquely...

 MNTX) is a transport museum

Transport museum

A transport museum is a museum that holds collections of transport items, which are often limited to land transport —including old cars, trains, trams/streetcars, buses, trolleybuses and coaches—but can also include air transport or waterborne transport items, along with educational displays and...

 in Saint Paul, Minnesota

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...

.

The MTM operates several heritage transportation sites in Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 and one in Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

. The museum is actively involved in preserving local railroad, bus and streetcar history.

The MTM was formed in 1962 to save a streetcar that had been built and operated by Twin City Rapid Transit

Twin City Rapid Transit

The Twin City Rapid Transit Company , also known as Twin City Lines , was a transportation company that operated streetcars, and buses in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Minnesota...

 (TCRT) in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Many of the museum's early members were formerly part of the Minnesota Railfans Association, which had organized railfan

Railfan

A railfan or rail buff , railway enthusiast or railway buff , or trainspotter , is a person interested in a recreational capacity in rail transport...

 trips from the 1940s-1960s.

In 2004–2005, the organization's streetcar operations became the Minnesota Streetcar Museum

Minnesota Streetcar Museum

The Minnesota Streetcar Museum is a transport museum that operates two heritage streetcar lines in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the western suburb of Excelsior....

. In addition, a steamboat

Steamboat

A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...

 that was originally built by TCRT in a style similar to its streetcars became the Museum of Lake Minnetonka

Museum of Lake Minnetonka

The Museum of Lake Minnetonka is an organization that was split from the Minnesota Transportation Museum in 2004–2005 to operate the steamboat Minnehaha that was part of a small fleet made by the Twin City Rapid Transit Company in 1906...

.

Minnehaha Depot

After the first streetcar, TCRT #1300, was successfully restored, other projects were examined in the time before the streetcar could be put on its own set of rails.

The Minnehaha Depot was a former Milwaukee Road depot at Minnehaha Falls

Minnehaha Falls

Minnehaha Creek is a tributary of the Mississippi River located in Hennepin County, Minnesota that extends from Lake Minnetonka in the west and flows east for 22 miles through several suburbs west of Minneapolis and then through south Minneapolis. Including Lake Minnetonka, the watershed for the...

. The station, built in 1875, was nicknamed "The Princess" because of its delicate architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

. Trains running on special routes have sometimes stopped at the station, and it was eventually integrated into the area streetcar system. Tracks owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway

Canadian Pacific Railway

The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

 reach the station, though it is at the disused end of a rail spur.

The depot is owned by the Minnesota Historical Society, and the Minnesota Transportation Museum operates the depot for the Minnesota Historical Society (MHS). In 1967 the depot became the first building to be restored by the museum and it was outfitted with exhibits. Today, the Hiawatha Line

Hiawatha Line

The Hiawatha Line is a light rail corridor in Hennepin County, Minnesota that extends from downtown Minneapolis to the southern suburb of Bloomington. It was formerly known as the Hiawatha Line named after Hiawatha Avenue. Major connections on the line include the Minneapolis-St...

 station serving Minnehaha Park is located across the road from the old depot.

Classic buses

Several buses from the 1940s and 1950s are also operated by the museum. Most of the buses in the collection were built by the GMC division of General Motors, and represent the vehicles that replaced the streetcars in the Twin Cities in the 1950s. The conversion from a streetcar to bus system required two years. The last trolley run was on Hennepin Avenue on June 18, 1954.

There is also a Mack

Mack Trucks

Mack Trucks is an American truck-manufacturing company and a former manufacturer of buses and trolley buses. A wholly owned subsidiary of Renault Véhicules Industriels since 1990, Mack Trucks is currently a subsidiary of AB Volvo. The company's headquarters are located in Greensboro, North Carolina...

-built bus, and a Yellow Coach

Yellow Coach

The Yellow Coach Manufacturing Company was an early manufacturer of passenger buses in the United States. It was founded in Chicago as a subsidiary of the Yellow Cab Company in 1923 by John D. Hertz...

 dating to 1935 that once operated in Rochester, Minnesota

Rochester, Minnesota

Rochester is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Olmsted County. Located on both banks of the Zumbro River, The city has a population of 106,769 according to the 2010 United States Census, making it Minnesota's third-largest city and the largest outside of the...

, but it has not been restored.

As the museum has acquired much of its bus collection from Metro Transit

Metro Transit (Minnesota)

Metro Transit is the transit division of the Metropolitan Council, a regional governmental agency in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area of the U.S. state of Minnesota. Metro Transit is the largest operator of bus services in the seven-county region surrounding Minneapolis and St...

, the bus company sometimes requests the use of the old buses for special events.

Osceola & St. Croix Valley Railway

The MTM, along with the historical society of Osceola, Wisconsin

Osceola, Wisconsin

Osceola is a village in Polk County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 2,421 at the 2000 census. The village is located mostly within the Town of Osceola.The downtown features Cascade Falls, a waterfall with a crest, located on Osceola Creek....

, operates a heritage railroad

Heritage railway

thumb|right|the Historical [[Khyber train safari|Khyber Railway]] goes through the [[Khyber Pass]], [[Pakistan]]A heritage railway , preserved railway , tourist railway , or tourist railroad is a railway that is run as a tourist attraction, in some cases by volunteers, and...

 called the Osceola and St. Croix Valley Railway. Excursion trains are operated on trackage formerly owned by Wisconsin Central Ltd., now part of Canadian National Railway

Canadian National Railway

The Canadian National Railway Company is a Canadian Class I railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. CN's slogan is "North America's Railroad"....

.

Excursion trains operate from the Osceola Depot, with service to Dresser, Wisconsin, and southbound to and through the scenic St. Croix River Valley. Trains operate on a regular schedule on weekends and holidays from April-October. Other operations include Special Events trains all season, including brunch, dinner, pizza, pumpkin and Fall leaf viewing trains through the River Valley.

At this time a number of locomotives and pieces of rolling stock

Rolling stock

Rolling stock comprises all the vehicles that move on a railway. It usually includes both powered and unpowered vehicles, for example locomotives, railroad cars, coaches and wagons...

 are in operation. All equipment has been reconditioned to standard operating condition, including the classic open window coaches, several Great Northern express coaches and a refreshment coach. Locomotives currently in running condition are classic diesel

Diesel engine

A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...

-electric. Steam locomotives such as classic 4-6-0 Northern Pacific #328 have also been used to pull the trains.

As noted, the train route runs from Dresser, Wisconsin

Dresser, Wisconsin

Dresser is a village in Polk County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 732 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Dresser is located at ....

 to Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota

Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota

Marine on St. Croix is a city in Washington County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 689 at the 2010 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which, of it is land and of it is water. Minnesota State Highway 95 serves as a main...

.

The museum also operates the Dresser Depot at the northeast terminus of the line in downtown Dresser.

Jackson Street Roundhouse

The Jackson Street Roundhouse is the MTM's headquarters in St. Paul, as well as a fully functional railroad roundhouse

Roundhouse

A roundhouse is a building used by railroads for servicing locomotives. Roundhouses are large, circular or semicircular structures that were traditionally located surrounding or adjacent to turntables...

.

Open Wednesdays and Saturdays, year-round, it is the site where the museum's locomotives and rolling stock

Rolling stock

Rolling stock comprises all the vehicles that move on a railway. It usually includes both powered and unpowered vehicles, for example locomotives, railroad cars, coaches and wagons...

 come for maintenance and restoration. It is a highly interactive exhibit offering train rides as well as interactive exhibits about surface transportation history of Minnesota and the upper Midwest. The building was erected by the Great Northern Railway in 1907 and is on a site that has been used for rail transportation ever since trains first came to Minnesota.

The roundhouse is also home to the Northern Pacific Railway

Northern Pacific Railway

The Northern Pacific Railway was a railway that operated in the west along the Canadian border of the United States. Construction began in 1870 and the main line opened all the way from the Great Lakes to the Pacific when former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final "golden spike" in...

 steam engine 2156, best known to many Twin Cities children from the 1960s / 70s, as Casey Jones

Casey Jones

John Luther Jones was an American railroad engineer from Jackson, Tennessee, who worked for the Illinois Central Railroad...

' steam engine.

External links

• Minnesota Transportation Museum