Wow, this film is in pretty good condition for being circa 1963 and color. Some nice shots of the C&NW Flambeau 400 as it travels across Northern Wisconsin. Eland, WI is just East of Wausau. Looks like the upper headlight is barely working as a Mars light (broken?). You can detect movement and the light being on as it passes, just looks like the headlight is not pointing forwards so it looks like it is off from a distance (how did that get passed inspection).
Amazing how ‘weedy’ the right of way was in all the shots.
Passengers were about the only traffic by then.
Great video!
is the line still in service?
The C&NW Wisconsin lines were notoriously absent of freight. Milwaukee Road was the biggest carrier in the state followed by the Soo Line and C&NW was dead last. C&NW predeccessor railroads in Wisconsin were heavily invested in passenger service and built airlines everywhere that largely duplicated Milwaukee Road or Soo Line trackage in place already. This was done before C&NW acquired them via the Predecessor lines so C&NW when it acquired them did not know competing parallel lines would later merge with MILW or SOO.
In the case of the Flambeau 400 it used the C&NW predecessor Milwaukee, Lakeshore and Western almost exclusively north of Milwaukee. The line stretched from Milwaukee to Ashland, WI where the C&NW had ore docks on Lake Superior. The lines Northwest of Green Bay were all abandoned in the 1980’s (where this video was taken). The two lines South of Green Bay only exist in stretches. The line that used to follow the lakeshore of Michigan up was called the Lakeshore Line, the inland line that went through Fond du Lac and Oshkosh was called the Airline. The Flambeau 400 used both routes. Lakeshore Line and Airline between Milwaukee and Green Bay, WI but only one route and one train North of Green Bay to Ashland, WI. The Flambeau 400 had it’s last run shortly before Amtrak was started, I believe at that point it was cut back to Green Bay but I am not sure. Below link is a timetable with a map so you can see the routes.
Milwaukee, Lakeshore and Western Lakeshore line was partially funded via the cities it ran through… it started in 1850’s and merged with C&NW I think in 1893.
The “Flambeau 400” was also noted as one of the two C&NW passenger trains re-equipped in 1958 in exchange for the discontinuance of a batch of empty local passenger trains in Wisconsin.
By the late 1960’s, service north of Green Bay had become seasonal, operating only during the summer and the Christmas holidays. Consequently, the last run of the “Flambeau 400” north of Green Bay took place in January 1971.
A typical vacationland station, Eagle River, WI today and 1936:
Eland in the past and today. I’m afraid it’s shrunk.
BTW, the C&NW trains to Green Bay over the Airline (Fond Du Lac, Oshkosh, Appleton) always had decent patronage to Green Bay, especially in the Summer. I remember in the Summer of 1970 dropping off my Brother and Sister for a ride to Oshkosh, the train was 5-6 bi-levels long with dual F’s.
It’s the reason why Amtrak pays for Thruway bus service to Green Bay from Milwaukee. But looking on WisDot’s rail passenger subsidy list…Milwaukee to Green Bay is conspicously absent from the rail plan for some reason. Most of the former C&NW rails have been lifted but the same route can be served by ex-Milwaukee Road West to Duplainville, use connect track to CN, use CN North to Green Bay. Maybe it is the expense of PTC and using a non-established Amtrak route.
Excellent! The Flambeau 400 was the intercity train I rode most often as a kid, on visits with relatives in Shawano. The only time I got to ride it north of Shawano was the last southbound run out of Ashland, on January 2, 1971. (I had gone north on an overnight Greyhound.)
I’m surprised to see the diner in this video. My recollection is that by the Sixties the diner, along with a parlor and some additional coaches, only operated south of Green Bay.
An oddity of the Flambeau’s scheduling is that it ran northbound via Sheboygan, but southbound via Fond du Lac.
Diner 6958 was originally in the Streamliner fleet. I think (not certain) a diner ran to Ashland (summer only) by 1963, using a coach-lounge the rest of the year.
Found picture of C&NW diner with a top added to it to match the bi-level cars for the Wisconsin trains.
- CNW 903 - gallery diner - coach. (RR - FALLEN FLAGS)
I’m not going to be the only one clamoring for an interior view of this thing! So … here is car 903:
http://www.crow_t_robot.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=4106514
Astoundingly enough, not only did this make it to Amtrak day, it ran for nearly 20 years in Amtrak service…
[Note that this isn’t the “diner” shown in the movie. There were two of these (6958 and 6959) and if they were single-level in this picture it seems unlikely they’d be modified with higher tops later. I can’t find any picture of them with such a modification – someone please provide one!]
The equipment for the re-equipped Bi-Level “Flambeau 400” and “Peninsula 400” consisted of 10 96-seat gallery coaches (700-709), one gallery parlor car (600), a gallery parlor-lounge and a gallery coach-lounge. Included were two rebuilt diners with raised rooflines (6958-6959) and two baggage-tavern-lounges (7600 series), one of which included an RPO. Car 903 shown above may be a “Sip-N-Snack” car modified from the gallery lounge cars.
903 was a coach-bar-lounge car, according to Dorin. It was built as a gallery car, as you said.
The coaches and coach(-parlor)-bar-lounges (along with the parlor car, which was later rebuilt into a commuter coach) were bulit as bilevels. The bggage(-rpo)-tavern lounge and diners were rebulit from earlier cars and did not run in Amtrak service.