Wednesday, January 11, 2012

The Soo Line

Sometimes things come back to me that are so distant, I don’t trust my mind. This is one of those distant, somewhat foggy, yet crystalline memories lodged deep within.

My parents Martha and Walter Conrad's home sat on a hill three blocks above the Soo railroad line cutting diagonally across Stearns County Minnesota. Seems I read someplace it was built to facilitate hauling grain from western Minnesota to the mills in St Paul, probably General Mills.

My sister Marion told me the conductor would stop the train one half-mile east of Rockville, five miles from our home in Cold Spring, to let us children off at my brother Wally's apartment when we went to visit him and his wife Irene. Of this I have no memory.

I do clearly remember going to the depot to pick up the big crate containing my balloon tire Columbia bicycle, red and white, complete with electric horn and headlight, sent for by my brother Tom and I, with money we earned delivering to St Paul Pioneer Press on Sunday mornings.

The Soo Line was vital to our small town life in the 40s and 50s.

But what I remember dimly and at the same time most clearly at the same time, deep within my mind, in bed on the second floor, snug and warm, covered with blankets, on a cold and crystalline Minnesota morning,

WAS THE DEEP POWERFUL RUMBLE, the sound was overwhelming.

The Soo Line went from coal and steam to oil-powered diesel.

The power still lingers in the furthest depth on my memory.

Cold Spring Depot

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