Draft:St. Paul Southern Electric Railway

St. Paul Southern Electric Railway

Overview
Headquarters	Hastings, Minnesota
Locale	Minnesota
Dates of operation	1914–1928
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Electrification	Overhead line, 600 V DC
Length	25 miles (40 km)
Operating speed	18 mph (29 km/h) average

The St. Paul Southern Electric Railway is a defunct railroad that operated between Saint Paul, Minnesota and Hastings, Minnesota. It is distinct for being one of the least successful electric interurbans in the country.

History

Planned network

Context

The St. Paul Southern Electric Railway Company was created on April 5, 1913. But for two years prior the Interurban Construction Company had been promoting and acquiring franchises for an electric interurban between St. Paul and Rochester, Minnesota. The goal of promoters what to create a direct rail connection between the home of the Mayo Clinic and the state capitol, an idea still pursued today by proposals such as Zip Rail.

In the early 1910s the fastest train between St. Paul and Rochester was on the Chicago Great Western's "Minneapolis and Osage" line. That train was routed 117 miles from St. Paul through Randolph and Red Wing. The fastest train made the journey to Rochester in four hours and 45 minutes, an average speed of 25 mph (40 km/h).

The goal is the Southern was to construct a shorter line that bypassed Red Wing, instead going through either Cannon Falls or White Rock on its way to Zumbrota. From Zumbrota, the Southern would have leased the tracks of the Chicago Great Western or the Chicago North Western to Rochester. Other railroads had surveyed this area with the same goal of a more direct Rochester connection, however grades were concidered too steep for steam locomotives. But with electric traction, the Southern would be able to traverse the hilly topography. If completed, the Southern's line to from St. Paul to Rochester would have been 82 miles and made the journey in about two and a half hours, an average speed of 33 mph (53 km/h).

Beginnings

Passenger operations between Inver Grove and Hastings started on November 17, 1914. But due to trackage disputes with Twin City Rapid Transit, passengers were required to transfer onto TCRT's "South St. Paul-Inver Grove" line to complete the journey into St. Paul. On April 25, 1915 the Minnesota Legislature passed a law giving municipalities the power to require streetcar companies to give trackage rights to other street railways. With this law, TCRT was forced to enter into a contract with the St. Paul Southern for trackage rights into downtown St. Paul, and through running finally began on August 22, 1915. After these initial difficulties were through with, a regular schedule of hourly service was established, with cars leaving St. Paul and Hastings at 40 minutes after the hour. Southbound cars took one hour and 27 minutes and northbound cars took one hour and 25 minutes, making an average operating speed of about 18 mph (29 km/h) on 25 miles of track.

In its first few years of operation the line made a profit, albeit a small one. This was expected, after all Hastings was imagined to be only a temporary terminus for the line. Work soon began on extending the line to Miesville and Cannon Falls. Unfortunately for the Southern, in 1917 the United States joined World War I and this put a stop work on the extension. The war's onset drastically reduced revenue on the line, and 1917 was the last year the company would make a profit.

Route

The Southern operated on 18 miles of its own track and seven miles of Twin City Rapid Transit Company track, operating along side it's "South St. Paul-Inver Grove" line. Starting in downtown St. Paul, the line circulated on downtown streetcar loop before leaving downtown via Robert Street, then turning south on Concord Street. On Concord Street the line travelled through the rest of St. Paul and South St. Paul before switching onto the company's own tracks at the border of South St. Paul and Inver Grove at Linden Street. In Inver Grove the line continued to parallel Concord on it's own right-of-way on the east side of the street. South of 66th Street the line began running just to the west of the CGW tracks. Further south, the line broke west to run parallel to Inver Grove Trail, proceeded under the CGW tracks, and continued south roughly alongside the path of today's Highway 55 through Pine Bend and rural Rosemount. The line then travelled northeast along today's Mississippi River Trail before soon heading due east at Spring Lake Cemetery. Traveling through open country the line eventually entered Hastings on 5th Street West, turned north on today's Highway 61, and east on 2nd Street East before wying out at Tyler Street.

Equipment

St. Paul Southern car 52 along Concord Street in Inver Grove

At the beginning of operations, the Southern had four passenger cars built by the Niles Car and Manufacturing Company. Cars #1 and #2 were combination passenger-baggage cars that seated 48, and cars #51 and #52 were straight passenger cars that seated 54. All passenger cars were equipped with four Westinghouse No. 306-CA2 motors with K control and were mounted on Baldwin class 75-25-A trucks. They were furnished with red plush seats, toilet facilities, and the exteriors were painted dark green (possibly orange at other times).

Additionally, the railroad had some work equipment. After car #1 burned in a car barn fire in October 1916, the car's trucks were salvaged and sent to TCRT's Snelling Shops to be used in a new motorcar to be used as a snowplow, work car, and freight motor. This work car used the same motors and trucks as the Niles passenger cars. In 1918, the railroad acquired four drop-bottom Gondola cars to be pulled by this work car, which were numbered #101-104.