The Tootin' Louie: A History of the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway (review)

The Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway was in every way a modest success, a term that could likewise be applied to other marginal carriers of the Midwest and East Coast. The extent of its rail network was modest (a total of approximately 1,600 miles), its spatial aspirations were modest (except for briefly entertaining the idea of extending a line to the Pacific Coast), and for the most part its passenger service was modest. In fact, while the railroad initially aspired to link Minneapolis and St. Louis, much as Mississippi River steamboats had once done before upstart Chicago emerged as a major rail hub, the company never succeeded in extending a line south of Iowa. As for its ambition to reach the Pacific Coast, it extended track as far as the east bank of the Missouri River in South Dakota and then (wisely) gave up.

The Minneapolis and St. Louis became primarily a Minnesota and Iowa carrier, and it was as an Iowa carrier that it attracted the attention of a young Don Hofsommer. Like many other historians (this reviewer included), Hofsommer fondly remembers the rail line along which he grew up in the 1940s and 1950s. He even worked one summer on the local section gang maintaining track. Perhaps some profound human psychology is at work forging a hidden connection that later inspires us to write about the railroads of our youth. If so, I am very impressed by the resulting history that Hofsommer has so fondly crafted. He has written numerous other excellent books on railroad history, but none is so obviously personal. Hofsommer also probes the railroad's shortcomings, its false starts, and its failed business plans. The resulting book brims with the insights of a scholar who has mastered his craft. The Tootin' Louie offers a model for the study of other regional railroads.

Throughout, Hofsommer seamlessly blends the history of the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway with its economic and social context. We see clearly the relationship between the railroad's freight service and the changing nature of midwestern industrial and commodity production. Coal, for example, was a major commodity that the Minneapolis and St. Louis once hauled from mines in Iowa. We observe clearly, too, the lessening importance of railroads in the life of midwestern communities after the coming of highways and automobiles.

The Tootin' Louie offers a study of how railroad executives tried to use new forms of technology to improve freight and passenger service, such as early adoption of diesel-electric locomotives and self-propelled rail diesel cars to offer passenger service to online communities even as demand continued to drop as more and more rural Americans acquired automobiles. Much of the second half of the book is a case study of how railroad executives used the company's slender resources to purchase technology needed to keep the carrier operating. Hofsommer titles one of his chapters about this difficult period "Soldiering On." Elsewhere he has chapters titled "Struggling among the Titans," "Hard Times in Good Times," and "Reason for Hope?".

The Minneapolis and St. Louis almost expired during the Great Depression. Its "knight in shining armor" was Lucian C. Sprague, the railroad's guiding hand from 1935 until 1954. The "doctor of sick railroads" strengthened the company by pruning away many miles of marginal line and getting rid of steam locomotives. The company cut passenger service to the bare bone before completely giving it up in 1960, with a final run between Minneapolis and Watertown, South Dakota. But this was not enough to save the railroad. The expansion-minded Chicago and North Western absorbed the Minneapolis and St. Louis in late 1960, and then abandoned much of the trackage. Only short segments of the original Minneapolis and St. Louis survive today as part of the gigantic Union Pacific system.

As a history of a railroad company and the country it served, this...