The St. Paul and Minneapolis area has a great
railroad heritage. I am glad the St. Paul Union Depot is coming back to life,
and the city has a strong metrolink light-rail. And
the future of commuter rail looks good, that is if officials come together.
Let’s move downriver a bit to Red Wing. They have a Great Northern station that
still hosts AMTRAK.
While we were taking pictures,
AMTRAK’s Eastbound Empire Builder made it scheduled stop. The train consist had
a couple of surprises in store for us. The flooding along the river forced a couple of private cars to head to Chicago
for the duration of the flood.
Wisconsin’s residents should be very proud of their
railroad history, but, we must move on to the great state of Illinois and US
Grant’s hometown of Galena. While the town currently does not have an AMTRAK
stop, there is a future plan to make that happen. Here are a couple of shots of
the railroad station.
We visited the US Grant’s Home and then headed down
to Milledgeville, Il to visit relatives, then off to
Rochelle, Illinois to spend the night. The next morning before we left town,
Stopped by the Railroad Park.
We left Rochelle and headed back
south along Interstate 39 to Interstate 55. Which runs alongisde the new higher
speed AMTRAK Chicago to St. Louis line, but, we did not see any rail traffic. I
was kinda bum’ed, but there will be another wandering in the future. Be sure
and keep checking back. Thanks for wandering with us.
