Below.  Here’s an excerpt from a Milwaukee track chart book that provides a few line-specific details:

I wish I would’ve taken a closer look at Albert Lea ten years ago before settling on Ackley. This would make a great layout.

In the last month or so I’ve looked at modeling the town in two segments: 1) The East Side, and 2) The West Side.

Now let’s look at some details. On the East Side, Milwaukee served a large Hormel packing plant and shared the switching duties with Rock Island. Milwaukee also maintained a small engine house and turntable near the plant for local engines and anything else that needed a spin. Milwaukee crossed the Rock Island twice here; one Milwaukee track was the east-west main, and another was a short industry spur into town that served a few customers and a power plant. See the track chart below.

What I call the West Side is contained by the two crossings.  This is the neat part.  Jammed between the Rock Island (east side) and Joint M&STl-RI crossing (west side) were a large number of small shippers—elevators, coal dealers, etc.—plus the freight house, interchange/transfer tracks, and the Milwaukee’s passenger station.  Check out the drawing below:

Below.  Here’s the exact same view today-view, courtesy Google Earth.  The RI main on the east side is still there, along with the brick interlocking tower (all UP).  The Joint track crossing on the west side is gone, along with the entire M&StL facility.  Remaining are the Milwaukee depot, freight house, and a number of the original industries.

Check out these Google Earth images.  Here’s what I call the East Side.  You can see the former RI crossing and tower, and the Milwaukee depot, and a few of the lineside customers.  Beyond the tower is the site of the turntable and engine house and the packing plant complex.  The tower over the old Rock Island still stands, but it’s hard to see.  You can just see it’s shadow across the tracks and the crossing.

Below.  Here’s the west side where the RI-M&StL Joint track crossed.  The old roadbed goes right to left across the bottom of the photo.  Plenty of old customers are still there.

Here’s a Google Streetside view of the same area below.  This was all part of a mill complex and was also the location of a transfer (interchange) track.  The former Milwaukee Road tracks are still in place; the RI-M&StL Joint Line–gone now–crossed right to left in the foreground.  You can see a few more of the trackside customers along the Milwaukee in the distance.

West of the Joint Track crossing there was a whole lot of nothin’. It’s beautiful Minnesota farm country though—definitely worth spending a little time modeling it.

Man, this is almost perfect for modeling. The variety of little shippers jammed between the crossings would provide a modeler with a lot of switching options in a very small space. The freight house has a huge cool factor; freight houses were signature structures on every road. The packing plant on the east side is the important “big industry” in town—they needed stock cars, box cars, meat reefers, and tank cars in big, steady quantities. The M&StL-RI interchange would serve as the all-important “universal industry” so you can route any car there any time.

Below.  Here’s an aerial of the Wilson packing plant, circa 1952, which was originally Albert Lea Packing.  Hormel had a plant about an hour east in Austin, Minneota–also served by the Milwaukee.  Thanks to Doug Harding for the photo.

What I didn’t have for this post was an employee timetable from the 40s or 50s showing train frequency. I’ll try to get that and update this post later. I sure would like to know if this was mixed-train territory.

My good friend Barry Karlberg sent me some words on Albert Lea that you’ll enjoy.

Hi John,

I grew up in Albert Lea from 1947 to 1960 and recall the Milwaukee Road depot and industries quite well. I spent time around the depot in my elementary school years when the local switcher was a steam locomotive and the big industry was the Wilson Meat packing plant. I also recall at about 5 or 6 years old riding in the cab of a steam engine, likely a 4-6-0 which pulled a passenger, not mixed, train west and my brother and Dad rode it to Alden. I believe the turntable was used to turn the engine which handled the 40 mile, St. Clair branch which diverged just west of Albert Lea. There was a wye at St. Clair to turn the engine/train for return to Albert Lea. Industries east of the depot were the Wilson plant stock inbound and tallow and meat out bound. Then there was the spur east to feed the Interstate power company generating plant plus the Jack Spratt grocery warehouse. These were all on the north side of the railroad. In front of the depot (south side) was a fairly, large, machine shop (Albert lea Tool Co, ?) then further west Albert Lea Elevator feed mill which later became Donavan feeds. North side west of the depot was the freight house and an oil bulk plant (maybe Mobil red tank cars) and then around the Milw.-M&STL curved interchange track there was also some other small manufacturing plant. West of the Milwaukee/M&STL/IC crossing was on the northside was the large, Universal milking machine, plant and on the south side on a siding was stock pen and a gas plant. Further west after going under Highway 65 (?) was a long spur which fed the Smith Doughlas Fertilizer plant and took tanks and small covered hoppers. Then a bit further west was the jct. switch for the St. Clair branch. The Milwaukee Road didn’t have much of a yard just a couple of sidings east by the engine house/ turntable to handle pickups and setouts for the Austin- Wessington Springs through freights. Looks like a portion of the railroad could be very modelable.

Happy New Year to you and your family.

Barry

SO WHAT’S THE DOWNSIDE?

The downside is I can’t model it in 19 feet. That’s it. I think I’d need 30 feet to do it right, end-to-end, plus space on each end for staging. What do you think?

THE NEW TRAIN ROOM

The new “train room” is much smaller than I had in the old house. Useable space is only 30 x 10, and I have to share the room with a small den and the family computer/study area. The room has a window (third floor!), a nice skylight and as of this writing, my workbench is already set up and in operation. It is not a big space, but I love it–it is cozy and inviting–and perfectly suited for a small sit-down layout.

There are quite a few more posts in the queue, but life is busy. I hope you are all having a wonderful, blessed Christmas celebration!

– John G