Osceola & St Croix Valley Railway

I found a brochure for the Minnesota Transportation Museum and noticed a couple of interesting places that had to do with trains. The first one that I visited was the Osceola & St Croix Valley Railway . Actually located in Wisconsin, they ran restored trains along about a fifteen mile stretch of track. They did not actually own this line, but were allowed to use it. The right of way was actually owned by a quarry company that hauled out rock along the line a couple of times a week.

The route I traveled went from Osceola to Dresser, WI. Unfortunately, this was only a distance of about five miles, so the trip was pretty short. The entire ride was about an hour, and that included switching around the locomotive. Despite this, it was still a very enjoyable ride. The museum was run by (I believe) volunteers, and they were very knowledgeable. I do not know any of the details about the locomotive or the cars, so I can not bore you with those. One unique thing this line did though was to pick up a mail bag from the station in the manner that was used before travel by road or air became easy and fast. The mail bag was suspended by the station and the conductor grabbed it as the train rolled past.. Of course, this was mainly for show because even though the mail was sorted on the train, it was actually brought back to the station that it was picked up from to really be mailed.

Pictures of Trains

The Town

After I finished riding the train and looking around the depot, I went to explore the small town of Osceola near by. There was not too much there, just an antique store and a couple mom & pop shops. The one things the town did have (and I believe the reason it was founded) was a nice waterfall running through the middle of it. It was not quite Niagara Falls, but it probably dropped about twenty-five feet, and looked nice.

Pictures of Water