Research & Archives

Great Northern Railway Research and Archives

New!  GNRHS and NPRHA jointly operate a large archival facility at Jackson Street Roundhouse in St. Paul, MN. For years the groups have been painstakingly cataloging hundreds of thousands of documents, drawings, photos and artifacts. A Joint Archives Committee is working to make indexes and scans of those materials available on the web. The "beta" version of the site is now available at http://www.gn-npjointarchive.org. You'll find so far:

* an index to 65,000 GN AFE (Authorization for Expenditure) records in searchable/sortable form.
* 9,600 structure drawings (mostly GN, NP and SP&S) from the BN Aperture Card collection.
* 4,323 station plat maps from " " " " "
* an index to 24,435 bridge/building drawings from " " " " "
* a small Cascade Division sampler including photos, blueprints, & dispatcher train sheets.
* sampler of the Cordell Newby photo collection.

There's more coming, and much refinement to be done, but we hope you find it a healthy start.

KNOWN ISSUES:

* Little indexing or detailed descriptions yet on Newby photos.

THANK YOU!

This project is built on years of efforts by dozens of people, including everyone who's ever donated materials or archived, scanned, catalogued, remodeled, or otherwise helped preserve the railroads' historical materials. The technology's role here is simply to "bring that work to light" – to make it broadly available to members, researchers and the public worldwide. "Thank you" to all involved.

http://www.gn-npjointarchive.org

Continue your search at the GNRHS Archives, which is located at the Minnesota Transportation Museum - Jackson Street Roundhouse in St. Paul, Minnesota. 

Max Ulver has put together a fabulous database of libraries, museums and historical societies which have Great Northern-related resources available.  His database is available on this website at:

http://www.gnrhs.org/gn_resources.htm

The Minnesota Historical Society has a wealth of information on the GN Railway including a good chunk of official GN documents. Their address is: 345 Kellogg Boulevard West, Saint Paul, MN 55102-1906. Their phone number is: 651/296-6126. Their hours are Tue, Wed, Fri & Sat from 1000 to 1700, Thu from 1000 to 2100, Sun 1200 to 1700. The museum is closed Monday. Their web page address is:

http://www.mnhs.org

The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway has also retained a portion of the original GN records. Their web site is located at:

http://www.bnsf.com

Another source is the James J. Hill Reference Library. Their address is: 80 West Fourth Street, Saint Paul, MN 55102. Their phone number is 651/265-5500. Their hours are Mon-Wed from 0900 to 2000, Thu from 1000 to 2000, Fri-Sat from 0900 to 1730. The museum is closed Sunday. Their web page address is:

http://www.jjhill.org

For Genealogy inquiries, visit:

http://www.gnrhs.org/genealogy.htm