That’s a really big snowbird: Vintage train makes annual migration north from St. Paul to Osceola

Mary Divine, Pioneer Press
Updated ·6 min read

For train buffs like Brian and Sandra Rockholt, the annual train migration of the Osceola & St. Croix Valley Railway from St. Paul to Osceola, Wis., is an event to remember.

“It’s like the first day of school,” Sandra Rockholt said Tuesday as she waited for the restored vintage train to pass under the pedestrian bridge just north of Hamline Avenue and Pierce Butler Route in St. Paul. “I’m a retired teacher, and there’s that same feeling of excitement.”

Rockholt and her husband, Brian, a volunteer brakeman for the railway, joined a group of about a dozen people Tuesday morning at the Jackson Street Roundhouse, the headquarters of the Minnesota Transportation Museum, to send off the freshly restored and newly painted train.

“There it goes!” said Brian Rockholt as it departed the roundhouse at 10:43 a.m.

The Rockholts ran to their blue Subaru Outback to “chase” the train as it made its way along BNSF track to the Northtown Yard in Minneapolis. Yes, the train has to go west before it can head northeast to Wisconsin.

The museum has agreements to use BNSF track until Northtown Yard. After reaching Northtown, the train crew switches to Canadian Pacific track for its run to Withrow, near Hugo. From there, it switches to Canadian National track for its final trek to Osceola.

BNSF employee Brett Bakken joined museum volunteers for the first part of the journey. He and Bob Puelston, the museum’s railroad superintendent, went over the “track bulletins” prior to departure.

“This shows everything that is going on, all the restrictions, everything along the route — not only ours, but others,” Puelston said. “For our routing, we’re fine. There are no restrictions.”

“It’s restricted speed all the way,” Bakken said, explaining that the train is not allowed to go over 20 mph. “We’re just going to take it easy all the way.”

Bakken said he has been assigned to help with the annual train migration “five or six times” in the past. “It’s just another day at work,” he said.

Back to summer grounds

The annual migration of the Osceola & St. Croix Valley Railway, which runs excursion trains from Osceola north to Dresser, Wis., and south to Marine on St. Croix, generally occurs on a Tuesday in May.

Tuesdays tend to be somewhat slower days for the railroads, said Scott Hippert, museum director. The excursion train “doesn’t ever take priority over freight rail,” he said.

In the fall, volunteers will repeat the process going the opposite direction. The locomotives and passenger cars spend the winter at the Jackson Street Roundhouse undergoing maintenance, Hippert said. “We’ve got to make sure all the equipment is shiny and running right,” he said.

Last year, more than 26,000 people rode the railway, he said.

On Tuesday, the crew departed the Jackson Street Roundhouse with the lead diesel locomotive — the Burlington Northern 6234, built in 1959 — moving forward. It then pulled into a siding. “Then they do what’s called a ‘shove back’ onto the main line, so they are backing up,” Brian Rockholt said. “Once they are on the main line, they’ll throw the right switches, and they can come forward again.”

The train migration on Tuesday also included the Soo Line 559 (Rock Island 1223) diesel locomotive, built in November 1951, and eight passenger cars built between 1911 and 1949. “The entire train weighed 940 tons and was 757 feet long,” said Brian Rockholt, a retired Delta Airlines employee. “The equipment is very well maintained to be able to run and operate on the commercial rails.”

Brian Rockholt, armed with a Go Pro camera, a Canon DSLR camera and his iPhone 14 Pro, took photos and videos as the train rumbled underneath the Hamline Avenue pedestrian bridge. Last year, the train got to the signal lights about 400 yards east of the Hamline Avenue bridge and stopped, he said.

“We couldn’t see them, but they had red lights, and they couldn’t move until they got the go-ahead,” he said.

“We sat here twiddling our thumbs for I don’t know how long,” Sandra Rockholt said. “It wasn’t long after that that Brian went and got his radio.”

The BaoFeng radio allows the Rockholts to hear the live rail radio audio stream. “We can’t track them, but we can at least hear them if we’re in range,” he said.

The Rockholts were joined on the Hamline Avenue pedestrian bridge by the mother-son train-chasing team of Virginia and Ryan Anderson. “I’m a train nut,” said Ryan Anderson, who lives in Roseville. “We did it last year, and it was so much fun, we decided to do it again.”

Virginia Anderson, of Arden Hills, volunteered to be his driver for the day. Her husband, Dave, is a volunteer at the museum.

Viewing spots

The Rockholts said they got to see the train at five spots along the route: St. Paul, New Brighton, White Bear Lake, Withrow and Otisville, north of Marine on St. Croix.

In Withrow, they stopped at the cemetery where Nathaniel Prindle is buried. Nathaniel was the 2-year-old who died during the May 25, 2008, tornado in Hugo. Nathaniel loved trains, and his family chose the Withrow Cemetery because freight trains regularly chug past. The boy’s gravesite is engraved with an image of a train; a wooden train memorial with “Nate” written on the locomotive faces the track.

The couple, who live in Lakeville, beat the train to Osceola and got to watch it pull into the depot at 3:04 p.m. Total trip time? Four hours and 21 minutes, they said.

“It was fun seeing it come home for the summer,” Brian Rockholt said. “Everybody should come ride the train. It’s a fantastic family outing. Adults can be kids again.”

The Osceola & St. Croix Valley Railway

When: Season opens May 20 and continues Saturdays and Sundays and most Thursdays through Oct. 29. Round-trip train to Marine on St. Croix (90 minutes) departs 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday and noon on Thursday. Round trip to Dresser, Wis., (50 minutes) departs 1:15 p.m. on Saturdays; the trip includes free ice cream at the Dresser Depot.

Where: Departs from the restored depot in Osceola, Wis., about an hour from the Twin Cities

Cost: Tickets to Marine on St. Croix are $29 adults, $21 ages 3-15, $26 seniors ages 62 and older or veterans, free for ages 2 and younger, $85 family package for two adults and two children. Tickets to Dresser are $25 adult, $17 ages 3-15, $22 seniors ages 62 and older or veterans, free for ages 2 and younger; $70 for a family package for two adults and two children.

More information: mtmuseum.org

Related Articles