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Twin Cities Business - Short Lines, Big Problems http://tcbmag.com/news/articles/2017/June/short-lines,-big-problems <br />HOME (/) / NEWS (/NEWS) / JUNE (/NEWS/ARTICLES/2017/JUNE) / SHORT LINES, BIG PROBLEMS <br />News <br />TRANSPORTATION + LOGISTICS (HTTP://TCBMAG.COM <br />/TRANSPORTATION --- LOGISTICS) <br />Short Lines, Big Problems <br />Minnesota's small railroads are in a perilous state, putting the <br />businesses and small towns that rely on them in jeopardy. <br />MAY 31, 2017 <br />ADAM PLATT <br />EDITOR'S NOTE: The conclusion of the 2017 legislative session had a material impact on the railroads in this story. <br />The legislature allocated $1.5 million in bonding money to repair Minnesota Commercial's Hugo Line. It also <br />forgave the Minnesota Valley Railroad Authority's remaining debt for a loan to upgrade the eastern portion of the <br />Minnesota Prairie Line. Finally, the Legislature took the Governor's recommendation and began a short -line <br />improvement fund seeded with a modest $1 million. <br />Morton, Minnesota, is a railroad town. <br />It has been since 1884, when the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway crossed the Minnesota River on a mile -long <br />timber trestle on its way to South Dakota. Morton was founded because of the railroad, and has thrived and <br />struggled alongside it for well over a century. <br />Morton was a railroad town in 1960, when the Chicago & North Western swallowed up the M&StL, and it was still a <br />railroad town—moving corn and soybeans from area farms—when the North Western discarded the line in 1983, <br />part of a wave of abandonments of Midwestern agricultural lines as more and more commerce was taken up by the <br />rapid expansion of the nation's over -the -road trucking industry. A succession of owners followed, and the line's <br />condition became so bad the trains stopped in 2000. <br />Morton exists because the railroad stopped there and the line's decline both mirrored and accelerated Morton's, <br />which has lost half its populatiTl84�je the COW left town. Because small towns rely on agriculture, and ag needs <br />rail to ship profitably, letting the line die was not an acceptable solution. In 2002, the rural southern Minnesota <br />counties that were home to the line came together to buy it and start it up again as the Minnesota Prairie Line. <br />1 of 9 6/16/17, 11:35 AM <br />