ROCHESTER, Minn. (FOX 47) — People living along the Burlington Northern Railroad on the east side of the Mississippi River might have been amazed at the show of military might rolling by in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
A hundred railroad cars carrying heavy military equipment from the Minnesota National Guard at Camp Ripley were rolling south to Fort Hood, Texas. It was the first of eight massive military trains hauling heavy armor for Minnesota’s Red Bull Infantry Division.
The first train powered south past Bay City, Alma, Pepin and Nelson early Tuesday morning.
Another military freight train is taking the same route Tuesday night and should go through our area in the hours right after midnight. In all nearly a thousand vehicles will be onboard the eight trains over the next ten days.
The Minnesota National Guard said it’s part of an exercise testing the capabilities of the famed Red Bulls, some 52-hundred soldiers in all, at Fort Hood this summer. The units involved are part of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division.
