This new line connected the existing Minnesota Central line towards the Twin Cities at Austin to a mainline between Marquette, Iowa and South Dakota at Mason City. By 1874, the Milwaukee & St. Paul became the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, commonly known as the Milwaukee Road.
During the early years of the 20th Century, the Milwaukee Road greatly upgraded routes, and built a new mainline to the Pacific Ocean at Seattle. An expensive route, this extension sent the Milwaukee Road into financial turmoil.
By 1925, the Milwaukee Road had declared bankruptcy and reorganized as the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad in 1928.
This line saw little change throughout the years. While the Milwaukee Road saw success in the post-WWII years, the Midwest was heavily overbuilt with numerous railroads. As a result, the Milwaukee Road again entered bankruptcy in 1974, and begun significantly trimming route mileage.
The Pacific extension was formally abandoned west of Miles City, Montana in 1980; and numerous other routes were abandoned between 1980 and 1982.
In 1985, the Soo Line Railroad purchased the struggling Milwaukee Road. On January 1st, 1986; the Milwaukee Road ceased to exist, completely merging into Soo Line.
The Soo Line had been a part of the Canadian Pacific Railway system since 1984, when they purchased Soo as a subsidiary. CP continued operations of the Mason City-Austin route under the Soo Line name, until April of 1997, when it sold nearly 1,400 miles of trackage to I&M Rail Link.
By 2002, the routes owned by I&M were transferred to Iowa, Chicago & Eastern Railroad, a subsidiary of Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern. DM&E and IC&E were purchased by Canadian Pacific Railway in October 2008.
Today, CP continues to operate this route as subsidiary Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern. It is known as the Owatonna Subdivision, seeing approximately four trains per day.
06/26/21
Located in Mason City, this deck girder bridge crosses the Winnebago River near Norris Park.
Built in approximately 1940 to replace an older bridge, likely a truss, this bridge features a pair of deck girder spans, set onto concrete substructures.
Unfortunately, no date can be found for this bridge. It is also unknown if these spans were relocated from elsewhere, as the Milwaukee Road sometimes did that.
Overall, the bridge appears to be in excellent condition.
The author has ranked this bridge as being locally significant, due to the common design.
The photo above is an overview.
| Upstream | Abandoned Winnebago River Bridge |
| Downstream | Portland Rail Bridge |