Ramsey County History – Spring 1998: “Westminster Junction and Its Tunnels—An 1880s ‘Highway Intersection’ for the Railroads”

Westminster Junction and Its Tunnels—An 1880s ‘Highway Intersection’ for the Railroads

Author: Andrew J. Schmidt

Modern cities do a remarkable job of hiding infrastructure below ground. This article describes the below-ground engineering of railroad access to St. Paul through the Trout Brook corridor. Too narrow to handle the vast traffic of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, engineers multiplied its capacity through a series of tunnels beneath existing tracks. Though railroad traffic has declined, the Westminster tunnel complex is still there, for those who have eyes to see it.

PDF of Schmidt article