Dafter, Michigan

Soo Line Railroad crossing at Highway M-28

2,184 miles

Apr 30 – I find myself at the railroad crossing for the Soo Line railway.  All across the U.P., I’ve been seeing references to this railway line, so I think this crossing is telling me that it’s time to take a look at it. 

I had guessed that this railroad was named by a phonetic spelling for the Sioux Indians who lived around the western end of this railroad system in northern Minnesota & North Dakota.  (“Sioux” is a French spelling, pronounced “soo”.)  But as I virtually travelled toward Sault St. Marie and learned that “sault” is an Old French word for river rapids, I began to suspect that Soo was, instead, a phonetic spelling for that term.  And that is the derivation that my research sources offered.

Although it was officially named the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad (MStP&SSM) – quite a mouthful! – it was commonly known as the Soo Line. 

The Soo Line was the primary United States railroad subsidiary of the monumental Canadian Pacific Railway (CP).  Through corporate mergers & re-branding, the Soo Line was subsumed under the Canadian Pacific Railway.  Most Soo Line locomotives have been repainted into CP or scrapped.  They still hold a lot of nostalgic significance for those who remember its glory days.

info: Wikipedia.com

images: Google Images