Twin Cities and Western Railroad

Twin Cities and Western Railroad

Twin Cities and Western Railroad trackage. Solid lines are track owned by TCWR; dotted lines are TCWR trackage rights.
A Twin Cities and Western Railroad train waits in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Reporting mark	TCWR
Locale	Minnesota South Dakota
Dates of operation	1991–
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Headquarters	Glencoe, Minnesota

The Twin Cities and Western Railroad (reporting mark TCWR) is a railroad operating in the U.S. state of Minnesota which started operations on July 27, 1991. Trackage includes the former Soo Line Railroad "Ortonville Line", originally built as the first part of the Pacific extension of the Milwaukee Road. This main line extends from Hopkins, Minnesota (a Western suburb of the Twin Cities) to Appleton, Minnesota. The line was originally built between Hopkins and Cologne Minnesota in 1876 by Hastings and Dakota Railroad. In 1913, the Milwaukee Road rerouted it, reducing the curves. The line was eventually extended to the Pacific.

As of 2010, the TCWR also has trackage rights over the BNSF Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway. In 2012, the TCWR purchased the Sisseton Milbank Railroad and it now operates as a subsidiary of the Twin Cities and Western Railway.

The company is also affiliated with the Red River Valley and Western Railroad in North Dakota, and the Minnesota Prairie Line, which has a junction with the Twin Cities and Western in Norwood Young America, Minnesota. Andrew Thompson is currently the chief executive officer of all three railroads.

Until Hiawatha Avenue (Minnesota State Highway 55) was reconstructed in the 1990s and plans for the Hiawatha Line light rail service entered late stages, the Twin Cities and Western operated on Canadian Pacific's Bass Lake Subdivision through the 29th Street railway trench in Minneapolis, now known as the Midtown Greenway. The tracks continued along the former Milwaukee Road Short Line into Saint Paul, where TC&W would access rail yards operated by Canadian Pacific, the Minnesota Commercial Railway, and others. As part of the Hiawatha project, the railroad agreed to new routing enabling the severing of the line that saved the Hiawatha project money.