page_title: Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad
section_title: Passenger service
hierarchical_section_title: Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad / Passenger service
caption_attribution_description: This is a restored iron ore car built in 1916 for the Soo Line (= Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad). It was painted hematite red to reflect a common color of the iron ore rocks it hauled. Steel ore cars like this were used to ship high-density, Proterozoic-aged iron ore from the iron ranges of northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. This car is now part of the Mid-Continent Railway Museum collection in the town of North Freedom, Wisconsin. The railroad ballast on the ground is crushed Baraboo Quartzite, which is ~1.7 billion years old (Paleoproterozoic). It comes from a nearby quarry in the Baraboo Ranges of southern Wisconsin. More info.: www.midcontinent.org/equipment-roster/steel-freight-cars/...
context_page_description: The Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad was a Class I railroad subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the Midwestern United States. Commonly known since its opening in 1884 as the Soo Line after the phonetic spelling of Sault, it was merged with several other major CP subsidiaries on January 1, 1961 to form the Soo Line Railroad.
  In 1970, it reported 8249 million net ton-miles of revenue freight on 4693 route-miles and 6104 track-miles operated at the end of the year.
context_section_description: The Soo Line was never a major carrier of passenger traffic since its route between Chicago and Minneapolis was much longer than the competing Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (Milwaukee Road), Chicago and North Western Railway, and Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad routes. It also had no direct access to Milwaukee.
  The primary trains operated by the Soo Line were:
  The Laker which operated an overnight service from Chicago's Grand Central Station to Duluth–Superior with a portion to Minneapolis–St. Paul. An additional portion served Ashland, Wisconsin until January 1959. The Laker was discontinued completely on January 15, 1965.
  The Winnipeger which operated overnight between Minneapolis–St. Paul and Winnipeg. It was discontinued in March 1967.
  A Minneapolis–St. Paul to Western Canada service. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Soo Line operated the Soo-Pacific, a summer-only Chicago to Vancouver service with the Canadian Pacific Railway. This later became The Mountaineer, which was then reduced to Minneapolis–St. Paul to Vancouver, before being discontinued in early August 1960. The Mountaineer was a summer-season-only train that carried exclusively sleeping cars but no coaches. During the non-summer months, the train ran as the Soo-Dominion from Minneapolis–St. Paul to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, where it was combined into Canadian Pacific's The Dominion transcontinental passenger train. It was cut back to a St. Paul to Portal, North Dakota run after CP discontinued passenger service to Portal at the end of 1960, before being discontinued entirely in December 1963.
  A Minneapolis–St. Paul to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan overnight train, which was discontinued in March 1959.
  Additionally, local trains served Chicago to Minneapolis–St. Paul, Duluth–Superior to Minneapolis–St. Paul, Duluth to Thief River Falls, Minnesota, and some summer-only services which relieved The Mountaineer of the local work along its route.
caption: A well-used Soo Line ore car, built in 1916. Hauling iron ore was an important part of the Soo Line's business.
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