Minneapolis Municipal Waterworks Railway

After building a new water filtration plant in Columbia Heights, the city of Minneapolis decided to build an electric railway connecting the plant to an interchange with the Soo Line Railroad ~1 ½ miles away in order to haul chemicals to the plant, replacing the trucks that had previously performed this task. The railway was built by a combination of day labor from the Waterworks Department and Minneapolis Street Railway Company employees, who performed the specialized work of laying track and hanging wire. The route was used mainly to haul chemicals such as coal, powdered alum, chlorine, ammonia, and sand . Originally, passenger service was limited to plant employees but it was later extended to the general public.^[1]

With a length of only one and a half miles, the Filtration Plant Railway was one of the shortest railroads in the country. The line traveled from an interchange with the Soo Line Railroad near the intersection of Central Avenue (Minnesota State Highway 65) and 36th Ave NE in Northeast Minneapolis. From there, the line traveled up Central Avenue to 37th street, where it turned right and ran on the north side of Reservoir Blvd to the filtration plant located at Reservoir Blvd and 45th Ave NE in Columbia Heights. The line climbed steep grades, ranging from 2-5%, and it gained 123.4 feet in elevation in only ~8000 feet of track.^[1]