Passenger Trains > North American Railway Stations Part 27

This is the former Minneapolis Milwaukee Road Station mentioned in an earlier post. It is currently a hotel were I stayed prior to a Friends of the 261 trip.  Most of the rooms are in a structure attached to the station that can be seen to the left of the photo. The waiting room is a special events venue. The train shed now serves as a car park. At one point it was a skating rink in winter. There is no evidence of trackage leading away from the station. Much like Milwaukee's Everett Street station, it's tower was at some point truncated.  Lots of Milwaukee Road posters etc. can be found within the hotel. A great example of what can be done with no longer needed stations. 

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So nice to see another piece of fine railroad architecture preserved in such a classy way. (Not too many bus stations converted into 5-star hotels that I know of!) And in private ownership, to boot. I imagine some sort of public/private partnership was used to make it happen; whatever it was, it was money well spent. As much as I hate to see a railroad die, it is way preferable to re-purpose the infrastructure, especially one as well-built as this, than to lose it to demolition and more ticky-tacky highrises.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/20 18:47 by alally8444.

Great to see the lesser known but most historic station has been preseved.
ALLEN

Another great memory station for me.  Riding out of here on the Milwaukee Road Afternoon Hiawatha for to the station previously mentioned in Milwaukee.in the Skytop Parlor car.   Maybe recall a steak for lunch. Or  returning to this station on the Pioneer Ltd. overnight from Chicago.  And slipping out of the Skytop for awhile to sample the Pullman Standard built dome as we raced down to Red Wing at some said close to 90 mph.   And having a bit of what made Milwaukee famous back in the Skytop as we crossed the Mississippi at LaCrosse.  Always came down from Duluth on GN but chose to transfer t0 the HI in Mpls by changing stations there instead of St Paul to have a longer parlor car ride!!

Those were the days my friends and we hoped they'd never end.  But they did!!

Note:  This station also served Soo Line and Rock Island.

It is nice to see interior station photos. They tend to be rare.

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