Minnesota Prairie

Company History: After the 2000 closure of the Minnesota Central, the 94 mile state owned line between Norwood and Hanley Falls, Minnesota sat idle for two years. At that point, the owners of the Twin Cities & Western sent an exploratory team to check out the line. In October of 2002, the first revenue train of the new Minnesota Prairie Line (reporting marks MPLI), operated on the line. The company is a subsidiary of the TC&W. Initially the line was run with a pair of GP10’s in TC&W maroon but with MPLI logos. These have since been replaced with a pair of Caterpillar powered geeps from sister road Red River Valley & Western. Trains run five days per week on the Norwood end but only as needed from Wood Lake to Hanley Falls.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.