Dinner train halts stops in southern Minnesota

By Bill McAuliffe
Southern Minnesota
Correspondent

Minnesota will lose one of its two dinner trains this week when the Star Clipper abandons stops in two southern Minnesota communities.

Operators of the Iowa-based dinner train say they're leaving Glenville and Lyle, Minn., because those stops haven't provided enough riders in the past year to pay the freight.

"We've been very well-treated in that area. Unfortunately, this is a purely business decision," said Steve Lake, business manager for Trains Unlimited Inc., a firm in Waterloo, Iowa, that operates the Star Clipper.

The Star Clipper- two 72-passsenger dining cars, a kitchen car and two locomotives- began running in late 1985, offering three-hour round-trip dining excursions out of Waterloo, Waverly and Osage, Iowa, and Glenville and Lyle. It was the only dinner train in the nation that served meals actually prepared on board.

Minnesota's remaining dinner train is the Minnesota Zephyr, which moved recently from the Lake Minnetonka area to Stillwater. The train runs along the St. Croix River, then to Dellwood, before returning to Stillwater.

Lake said the Star Clipper has carried 100,000 diners in its 22 months of operation. It was named Tourist Attraction of the Year by the Iowa Travel Council on Wednesday. Its last run out of Glenville is scheduled for today; it will leave Lyle for the last time Friday evening.

Sharon Piller, executive director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau in Austin, Minn., said representatives from Austin and Lyle met with Star Clipper officials in August operating in Minnesota.

Lyle City Clerk Nancy Williamson said the city had expressed a willingness to use grant money to improve a building near the depot for Star Clipper passengers and other tourist uses.

"We're very disappointed," Pillar said. "It's a wonderful attraction. We'd love to have kept it; it kept the calls and letters coming to our office."

Lake said Glenville had "the worst passenger boarding situation conceivable, and no opportunity to improve it."

Working against Lyle, in addition to low passenger numbers, was the fact that freight use on the line is increasing. The Cedar Valley Railroad owns the track, which used to belong to the Illinois Central.

Lake said Star Clipper passengers have come from all 50 states. "The people in Minnesota, we'd love to have them, but they're just going to have to come a little further south now," Lake said.

Osage, the northernmost stop for the Star Clipper, is about 20 miles south of Lyle.