Glenwood

In the heart of the Canadian Pacific rail network, there is a major yard in the Central Minnesotan town of Glenwood.  Throughout Glenwood's history, the railroad has been a source of jobs, economy, and supply to the small, rural town.  Even in the midst of the diesel era, the town still boasts a very large grain complex, as well as a scrapyard, fuel oil services, train RIP tracks, and it's own dedicated switchers to do the yard work.  GEVO's, Dash 9's, SD70, SD90, and SD45's can be seen on the route in the red CP Rail livery.  On top of this, Glenwood also has many SOO Line engines which include Geeps and various types of SD's.  Although CP rail owns the SOO Line, the SOO colors still live on in this rural yard.  Also, the yard hosts engines from Union Pacific and BNSF, mostly on interchange instead of through tracks.

The area round Glenwood has three different tracks; a track that runs south which eventually get's to Minneapolis/ St. Paul, an East-West track that goes from Glenwood, to Lowery and beyond to the North Dakota and South Dakota borders, and finally a northbound track that continues to the larger town of Alexandria and makes it's way North from there.  Below are photos from the area with captions:

A westbound unit train loaded with tank cars and box cars departs Glenwood on the East-West route, headed toward Lowery.  This route is great for trainspotting because a highway with many pull-off's are right next to the tracks.

A southbound CP rail train full of grain heads into the Glenwood yard from the North-South line.  This route is bordered by many rural roads, great for some rural trainspotting.

Here a southbound Union Pacific train with a load of grain meets a  northbound CP Rail full of tank cars along the southern edge of the Glenwood yard.  A guess would be that these cars would have come from the ammonia storage facilities by the CP rail train.  those tank in the background store the ammonia, an important chemical for farming.

Here is the Union Pacific train continuing on it's way after heeding to the CP Rail.

Along with the Engines, which are great, the cars are another sight to see.  Running between the farming communities and the large cities, many cars come back 'tagged' by vandals who express themselves with spray-cans of paint.  Although the practice is illegal, the artwork is still a sight to see.   An added bonus to taking pictures of the rail cars is that a modeler can replicate the graffiti for the ultimate realism.

Although spray paint art is cool, photography is a little less destructive, and can be equally impressive; and it is legal.  Below are a sampling of images of the rail yard and trains.

Finally, as you saw in the photos, Glenwood has a lot of snow, and the plows occasionally make their appearance   I have yet to capture a plow in action, but at least I have one parked!

As of March, a large storm came into Glenwood, and the plows actually came out of their 5 year long hibernation. unfortunately, I was not present when it happened, so I didn't get shots of the plows.  Well, I suppose there will be another time in the future.