There’s no railroad depot in Robbinsdale these days, but there was a- depot and considerable activity years ago. Mostly freight of course, but there was a time when Great Northern passenger trains stopped in Robbinsdale. Those, of course, were the days of steam, and the locomotives showered the entire downtown business area with cinders…The passenger train most people recall was the 9 p.m. flyer to Winnipeg. You could set your watch by that train, “and it didn’t take long to pass through town. It roared out of Golden Valley and rocketed beneath the bridge at 36th like a cannonball. By the time the dust had settled at the depot on Rockford Road, the train was already thundering past Ellis’ Log Cabin in Crystal, where many a banquet speaker had to pause until the flyer was long gone.
Back in those days, train watchers had it all. They could park somewhere near the Great Northern-Soo Line crossing in Crystal and see action the better part of the day. When the diesels arrived it didn’t seem the same to the steam lovers, but at about the same time steam started to disappear, so did the streetcars, and that included the line into downtown Robbinsdale.
Excerpted from an early 1980’s Bob Bork’s Column in the North Hennepin Post
