Twin Cities and Western Railroad - Current Routing and Planned Changes

Current Routing and Planned Changes

Until Hiawatha Avenue (Minnesota State Highway 55) was reconstructed in the 1990s and plans for the Hiawatha Line light rail service entered late stages, the Twin Cities and Western operated on Canadian Pacific's Bass Lake Subdivision through the 29th Street railway trench in Minneapolis, now known as the Midtown Greenway. The tracks continued along the former Milwaukee Road Short Line into Saint Paul, where TC&W would access rail yards operated by Canadian Pacific, the Minnesota Commercial Railway, and others. However, the rail line was severed after it was deemed too complicated and costly to keep that connection.

Alternative routings for the TC&W were examined, and the best choice appeared to be to build a connection to the Canadian Pacific's MN&S Subdivision, the former Dan Patch Line, in St. Louis Park. However, it was discovered that the construction area (Golden Auto) was a Superfund site. Instead, a temporary connection to BNSF's Wayzata Subdivision was built along the Kenilworth Trail using right-of-way owned by the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority, and CP's Bass Lake Subdivision became the Bass Lake Spur. The Kenilworth alignment had first been built as part of the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway and eventually became part of the Chicago and North Western Railway. Hennepin County acquired the land when C&NW abandoned the line.

The temporary alignment was only expected to last between one and six years, but it has now become more than a decade and the line is beginning to need rehabilitation. A rerouting of the line was re-examined in 2009 because the Southwest Corridor light-rail line is planned to be built next to the Kenilworth Trail. Building the connection to the MN&S Subdivision is expected to cost about $48 million. A more detailed analysis is expected to be completed by the end of 2010.