The Brainerd Subdivision is a rail line owned and operated by BNSF Railway. It runs from

Staples, Minnesota Staples is a city in Todd and Wadena counties in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The population was 2,989 at the 2020 census. History Staples developed around a sawmill. The settlement was originally called Staples Mill, and under the latter nam ...

where it connects with the

Staples Subdivision The Staples Subdivision or Staples Sub is a railway line running about from Dilworth to Fridley, Minnesota (near Minneapolis). It is operated by BNSF Railway as part of their Northern Transcon and contains the busiest segment of mainline t ...

Carlton, Minnesota Carlton is a city in Carlton County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 948 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Carlton County. The town sits on the northwestern edge of Jay Cooke State Park. Minnesota State Highways 45 and ...

and the

Lakes Subdivision The Lakes Subdivision or Lakes Sub is a railway line operated by BNSF Railway that runs about from the Grand Forks Subdivision at Cass Lake, Minnesota, to Superior, Wisconsin, where there are a number of lines. U.S. Highway 2 runs parallel to the ...

, about in length. The line was initially built by

Northern Pacific Railway The Northern Pacific Railway was a transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the western United States, from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest. It was approved by Congress in 1864 and given nearly of land grants, w ...

with service commencing in about 1911. In 1970, the Northern Pacific merged with other railroads to form the

Burlington Northern Railroad The Burlington Northern Railroad was a United States-based railroad company formed from a merger of four major U.S. railroads. Burlington Northern operated between 1970 and 1996. Its historical lineage begins in the earliest days of railroadin ...

. The company then merged with

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and S ...

(ATSF) in 1996 to form BNSF. the rail line gets about seven trains daily, most of which are coal and one local that works Sunday and Wednesday Speed limits along some parts of the line are a maximum of 49 mph.

Rail yard

The Brainerd Sub features one small

rail yard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or ...

in Brainerd. Most of the yard is maintenance-of-way equipment based out of the BNSF Brainerd Shops. It also has a

spur line A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industr ...

that leads to Brainerd Industrial Center via a

street running A street running train is a train which runs on a track built on public streets. The rails are embedded in the roadway, and the train shares the street with other users, such as pedestrians, cars and cyclists, thus often being referred to as r ...

segment.

References

Transportation in Minnesota Rail infrastructure in Minnesota BNSF Railway lines {{US-rail-transport-stub