Browns Creek State Trail

Browns Creek State Trail connects with the Gateway State Trail at Duluth Junction in extreme western Stillwater and heads east to Downtown Stillwater. This was a spur off the Northern Pacific Railroad's Skally Line between St. Paul and Duluth. It was the first rail line into Stillwater and opened in the 1870s. The spur was abandoned between White Bear Lake and Duluth Junction in the early 1980s by the Burlington Northern Railroad. The right-of-way can be seen but it has mostly been developed.

At the same time the Minnesota Transportation Museum (MTM) was using the tracks between Duluth Junction and Downtown Stillwater for tourist trains. In 1987 the owner of the Minnetonka Zephyr (a dinner train operating in Lake Minnetonka communities) moved operations to Stillwater and renamed the train the Minnesota Zephyr.

Due to opposition from adjacent land owners the MTM moved operations to the community of Marine on St. Croix, which is north of Stillwater on the Minnesota/Wisconsin border. The Minnesota Zephyr continued to operate dinner trains until the end of 2007. The locomotives and coaches sat in Downtown Stillwater for six years waiting for a buyer. From what I've read the owner was asking too much for the equipment, and the City Council wanted the equipment removed as it was becoming blight. Eventually a buyer was found and the equipment was shipped away. The trail opened in 2015.

Here's a photo of Duluth Junction in 1980 by Tom Dethmers. Today this is the junction of the Browns Creek State Trail and the Gateway State Trail. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=4528797

MTM tourist train in Stillwater in 1988 by Tom Dethmers-http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=4519269

MTM tourist train (the steam engine) and Minnesota Zephyr meeting in western Stillwater in 1988. Photo by Tom Dethmers. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=4537570

One of the locomotives awaiting its fate in 2013. Photo by Andrew Goblirsch. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3756479

Here are my photos in 2017:

Mile post sign hiding in the trees.

Stillwater Depot, where trains once began and ended their journeys. Under the white tarp is a very old streetcar, but I don't know what its future will be.

Its been nearly 10 years since the tracks were abandoned but a railroad crossing sign still remains.