The Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad (LSMR) offers something many Duluth visitors and even longtime residents tend to overlook. While most leisure time is spent admiring the vast sweep of Lake Superior, this quiet excursion train hugs a different shoreline. Just west of downtown, it winds along the St. Louis River, a lesser-known waterway that once powered the city’s industrial boom and now flows through neighborhoods shaped by both history and recovery.
“For generations, the river has been kind of off limits, or at least out of mind, because it was so polluted,” said David Bolgrien, vice president of operations at the LSMR. Bolgrien, a retired biologist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, began volunteering with the railroad while still working full time. “There were railroads in the way and a massive steel mill between Morgan Park and the water. People lost their connection to the river or never had one to begin with.”
Now in its 45th season, the all-volunteer heritage railroad offers passengers a slow, immersive journey along 6.2 miles of track that winds from Riverside to Gary–New Duluth. As a narrator speaks about history and nature, riders can sit in vintage coaches or take in the breeze from an open-air car as the train traces the river’s edge, passing cattail marshes, wooded bluffs, and long-forgotten corners of the city.
“We give people a chance to see what has been in their backyard all along,” Bolgrien said. “Many have never gone there before.”
Today it is peaceful, but these riverfront areas were once alive with the clatter and smoke of steel mills and railroad yards. The ride offers a leisurely journey through history and habitat, where the freshwater river meets the lake in a broad estuary teeming with life. Great blue herons stand watch in the shallows, and if you are lucky, a river otter might ripple the stillness along the shore.
The estuary is also home to stands of wild rice, or manoomin, a sacred and culturally vital plant for the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. For generations, the band has harvested wild rice here and led efforts to restore and protect these waters. This place is more than scenic. It is a living landscape where nature, memory, and community still meet.
Running from the base of Spirit Mountain through Duluth’s western neighborhoods, the train offers a slow, scenic ride through a landscape most people have only glimpsed from a distance.
“You start near places you recognize, like across from the zoo,” Bolgrien said. “But then the train takes you into places you’re not as familiar with, even though they’re in your backyard.”
Unlike the more visible North Shore Scenic Railroad, which heads toward Two Harbors, the LSMR explores the western neighborhoods of Duluth. It operates on city-owned track that was once part of the original 1870 route from St. Paul to Duluth.
The ride takes about 90 minutes round trip. Along the way, passengers can sit in vintage coaches or an open-air safari car. At the turnaround point near Boy Scout Landing, the crew performs an old-fashioned maneuver: disconnecting the engine, looping it around and reconnecting it to the other end of the train. Passengers watch the process unfold in real time.
“It’s part of the show,” Bolgrien said. “You see us hook up the locomotive, connect the air hoses, run the brake tests. You’re seeing railroading up close.”
The all-volunteer crew includes retired railroaders, outdoor enthusiasts, and history buffs. Bolgrien joined 12 years ago after a friend recruited him. At first, he helped maintain the track by pounding spikes, cutting brush, and shoveling ballast. Now, he helps manage marketing, ticket sales, and outreach.
“We don’t have a pizza train or themed rides,” he said. “We just focus on the river. That’s our thing.”
It is a mission that resonates with longtime Duluthians and first-time visitors alike.
“We’ve had people say, ‘I’ve lived here for 30 years and never seen the river like this,’” Bolgrien said. “And tourists who say, ‘We came for Lake Superior but had no idea this was here.’”
With no paid staff and a modest depot tucked behind the zoo on Fremont Street, the LSMR relies on word of mouth and the dedication of volunteers. Even the track is partly theirs to maintain. The city of Duluth owns the western section and charges the railroad with caring for it.
“We’re a nonprofit, a business, and a federally regulated railroad,” Bolgrien said. “We do the inspections, the safety training, all of it.”
The LSMR operates quietly, fueled by dedication and curiosity. Its continued presence shows what a small group of volunteers can accomplish when they share a common purpose and a deep connection to place.
For those who climb aboard, the reward is simple: a deeper connection to Duluth’s riverfront, its history, and the quiet stories that still roll along the tracks.
For more information, visit: duluthrivertrain.com.
