Work has brought me to the pleasant north central Wisconsin town of Marshfield. Pretty town with a nice stone depot still standing, tho probably not where it was located originally.
This line thru Marshfield runs from Fond du Lac northwest to Duluth and on to Winnepeg and west coast. How many trains does CN run thru this area? I havent heard or seen one (except for a local) in 5 hours. Where does CN pull frac sand trains from? I know it is somewhere up here. What about the line to the Twin Cities…?
Friday morning had a little activity on the CN. As I was leaving Marshfield an eastbound manifest passed thru town. I followed it to Junction City where it went into the siding for a westbound. The WB had general freight on the front and 91 empty lumber racks…big train.
Is Fond du Lac a staging point for the return of empty lumber racks?
What is the line which crosses at Junction City? There are turnouts from the mainline to both north and south and the tracks appear to be in good shape.
I inquired to a MOW crew who were awaiting the passage of the trains, but they are instructed not to discuss railroad operations with non railroaders. “Things have changed from the past”. I smiled and left the property, wishing them a good day.
Railroaders are there to do their job, not provide us with intel.
Nice country in North Central Wisconsin and plenty of private locations to watch CN do its work.
The lines that cross at Junction City appear to be both CN. There’s the main line to Duluth and a crossing line that runs from New Lisbon to Ashland, WI. (There’s a branch to Rhinelander.) Here’s the Wisconsin DOT rail map:
The north/south line from New Lisbon to Bradley is part of the Milwaukee Road “Valley Line”, so called as it generally ran in the Wisconsin River Valley.
The east/west line running through Marshfield and Stevens Point is ex Soo Line.
How they got to CN is a bit of a story starting with the Milwaukee-Soo Line merger with Wisconsin Central thrown into the mix.
MP173, the UP has trackage rights on the Valley Line from Necedah (just north of New Lisbon) to Junction City and thence northwest on CN to the Twin Ports of Duluth-Superior.
If you had been able to continue to follow the tracks in to Stevens Point, you would have happened upon Soo Line H-21 Pacific 2713 and attendant Soo Line caboose on display across the street from the two story Stevens Point depot, which is still in use by CN. Stevens Point was a key operational division point for both the Soo and Wisconsin Central.
The 1911-built 75-inch-drivered racer served the Soo until 1955. For a time in the 1910s the 2713 and sisters had one of the longest engine runs in the world, pulling the Winnipeg Express (later called the Winnipeger) between Fond du Lac, WI (the first division point north of Chicago) all the way to Winnipeg, Manitoba.
The Soo thought so much of their Pacifics that units were displayed in Appleton, Eau Claire (2719) and Fond du Lac in addition to Stevens Point even though they rostered some handsome Mountains and four equally-handsome Northerns.
With the former Soo now an integral part of the CN “southern transcon”, the line is seeing more ton-miles than it ever has.
thanks for the report. I jumped on I39 on the north side of Stevens Point, thus missing the downtown depot and steamer. Perhaps next trip. The trackage seemed to be in great shape.
The 2013 CN Investor Fact Book shows abou 44 million GTM for the line. The CN line thru NW Indiana had about 40 million…so trains per day would probably be about the same…or about 20-25 per day.
The long string (91cars) of empty lumber rack certainly made for an impressive site.