Check out these great scenes of the Twin Cities and the Hiawatha!
Original Post
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Great piece of history, Love the Mlw Rd F7 and the 1939 cars , have never seen this footage
@Dave Koehler posted:Great piece of history, Live the Mlw Rd F7 and the 1039 cars , have never seen this footage
Well said, thanks to radioroy for posting!
I've always wanted to include the Washington Ave. viaduct (connecting the Milwaukee mainline to their downtown Mpls depot) on my layout, but never quite found the right spot. It was a pretty low bridge, about once a year a truck would try to go under it and get stuck.
When I was a kid, we went under the Washington Avenue viaduct every month or so. The center section was kind of a free-for-all, first car come first car served deal and it always surprised me that such a dangerous thing would have been built in the first place. It never occurred to me, nor did anyone explain in answer to my questions, that the center section originally had streetcar tracks in it.
Seeing historic pictures many decades later, finally brought an "ah-ha!" moment.
I went to see the viaduct a few years ago and was sad that it was gone. With no train traffic to the Milwaukee Road terminal, the viaduct was no longer needed.
At least the terminal and train shed were saved from the wrecking ball. So many, many other downtown buildings were not.
Roy, I enjoyed this. I only saw these types of street cars when I was a young boy on a rare visit to Kansas city. Probably 1950. There were electric buses too.
Ron H
As I recall, after the streetcars ended the center section of the Washington Ave viaduct was open but had a sign saying "Do Not Use Center Lane" or something like that...which of course as teenagers in the 1970s meant it was virtually a requirement that we drive through it!
