Great Northern Railway (U.S.)

Great Northern Railway
Great Northern route map circa 1920. Red lines are GN; dotted lines are other railroads.
Reporting marks	GN
Locale	St. Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington
Dates of operation	c. 1890–1970
Successor line	Burlington Northern
Track gauge	4 ft 8½ in (1435 mm) (standard gauge)
Headquarters	St. Paul, Minnesota

A Great Northern EMD F7 Locomotive.

The Great Northern Railway (AAR reporting marks GN), running from St. Paul, Minnesota to Seattle, Washington — more than 1,700 miles (2,736 km) — was the creation of the 19th century railroad tycoon James J. Hill and was developed from the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. The Great Northern's route was the most northern transcontinental railroad route in the United States and was north of the Northern Pacific Railway route. The Great Northern was a privately funded transcontinental railroad, though some of its predecessor roads received land grants. The Great Northern was one of the few transcontinental railroads to avoid receivership following the Panic of 1893.

History

The Great Northern was built slowly to create profitable lines before extending the road further into undeveloped territory. Contests were held to promote interest in the railroad. James J. Hill used early promotional incentives like feed and seed donations to farmers getting started along the line. Contests were all-inclusive, from largest farm animals to largest freight carload capacity. The Great Northern had branches that ran north to the Canadian border in Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana. It also had branches that ran to Superior, Wisconsin and Butte, Montana. The Great Northern eventually grew to a system of over 8,000 track miles. The mainline crossed the Mississippi River on the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis, near the Saint Anthony Falls, the only waterfall on the Mississippi. The bridge ceased to be used as a railroad bridge in 1978 and is now used as a pedestrian river crossing with excellent views of the falls and of the lock system used to grant barges access up the river past the falls. The mainline reached Seattle, Washington in 1893. In 1931 the GN also developed the "Inside Gateway," a route to California that rivaled Southern Pacific's route between Oregon and California. The GN route was further east than the SP route and ran south from the Columbia River in Oregon. The GN connected with the Western Pacific at Bieber, California; the Western Pacific connected with the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe in Stockton, California and together the three railroads (GN, WP, and ATSF) competed with Southern Pacific for traffic between California and the Pacific Northwest. With a terminus at Superior, Wisconsin, the Great Northern was able to provide transportation from the Pacific to the Atlantic by taking advantage of the shorter distance to Duluth from the ocean, as compared to Chicago. In 1970 the Great Northern, together with the Northern Pacific, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad and the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway merged to form the Burlington Northern Railroad, today part of the BNSF Railway.

Passenger service

"Drumhead" logos such as these often adorned the ends of observation cars on the Empire Builder.

The Great Northern operated various passenger trains but the Empire Builder was the GN's premier passenger train. The Empire Builder was named in honor of Great Northern's founder James J. Hill, who was known as the "Empire Builder."

Named trains

• Empire Builder Chicago-St. Paul-Seattle-Portland
• Oriental Limited Chicago-St. Paul-Seattle
• Western Star Chicago-St. Paul-Seattle-Portland
• Dakotan St. Paul-Minot
• Winnipeg Limited St. Paul-Winnipeg
• Red River Grand Forks-St. Paul
• Gopher St. Paul-Superior/Duluth
• Badger St. Paul-Superior/Duluth
• Internationals Seattle-Vancouver, B.C.
• Cascadian Seattle - Spokane

Unnamed trains

RDC Great Falls-Shelby, Great Falls-Billings, Great Falls-Butte

• Train Nos. 407-408, Seattle-Portland

Amtrak's Empire Builder

Today, Amtrak's Empire Builder uses the line, running mostly on ex-GN trackage (between the Twin Cities terminal and St. Cloud, Minnesota; Moorhead, Minnesota and Sandpoint, Idaho, and between Spokane, Washington and Seattle).

Further reading

• Sobel, Robert (1974). "Chapter 4: James J. Hill", The Entrepreneurs: Explorations within the American business tradition. Weybright & Talley. ISBN 0-679-40064-8. 
• Wilson, Jeff (2000). Great Northern Railway in the Pacific Northwest (Golden Years of Railroading). Waukesha, Wisconsin: Kalmbach Publishing. ISBN 0-89024-420-0. 
• Hidy, Ralph W.; Muriel E. Hidy, Roy V. Scott, Don L. Hofsommer (2004). The Great Northern Railway: A History. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-4429-2. 
• Yenne, Bill (2005). Great Northern Empire Builder. St. Paul, Minnesota: MBI. ISBN 0-7603-1847-6. 

See also

• Empire Builder
• Western Fruit Express
• Cascade Tunnel
• Great Northern Railway: Mansfield Branch (1909-1985)

External links

• Great Northern Railway Historical Society
• The Great Northern Empire — Then and Now
• Great Northern Railway Page
• Great Northern Railway Post Office Car No. 42 — photographs and short history of one of six streamlined baggage-mail cars built for the Great Northern by the American Car and Foundry Company in 1950.
• Burlington Northern Adventures: Railroading in the Days of the Caboose, written by former brakeman, conductor and trainmaster William J. Brotherton
• Great Northern Railway route map (1920)
• University of Washington Libraries: Digital Collections:
• Lee Pickett Photographs Over 900 photographs documenting scenes from Snohomish, King and Chelan Counties in Washington state from the early 1900s to the 1940s. Includes images of the Great Northern Railway.
• Transportation Photographs An ongoing digital collection of photographs depicting various modes of transportation in the Pacific Northwest region and Western United States during the first half of the 20th century. Includes images of the Great Northern Railway.

A Great Northern train pauses for the photographer four miles west of Minot, North Dakota in 1914.