Good evening, Everyone i have noticed something here in the milwaukee area in the past couple of months the well now old Wisconsin & Southern line on the northeast side of milwaukee or at least from. Green Bay Ave east to the end of the line which is just before Keefe Ave. The last time I went over the tracks they had heavy equipment removing the rails but it looked like they were leaving the ties in place also when. I crossed the tracks the warning lights were still up. But they may have come down by now but I have not crossed over them since. Although today well I was going by that area on the freeway I looked down and saw most of the ties were stacked up in piles waiting to be picked up. By the railroad and from what I saw that all of or most of the rails were already picked up. What I am wondering though is that all of the bussinesses that were served by the railroad close. Or what happened that caused the railroad to pull the rails up from the tie bed Thanks for any import on this.
The businesses on a stretch of track that were served by a railroad don’t have to close for the railroad to decide to abandon/embargo the line. They just have to not provide enough revenue to the railroad to make the line worth maintaining. If they’re shipping & receiving by truck, for example. The railroad applies to the STB for permission to abandon the segment, the STB decides if it’ll hurt too many businesses or not, and a bunch of other factors, and if the STB says yes - up come the rails.
They are removing another portion of the beer line, I assume. They applied to abandon some more of this line a couple of months ago. This line used to extend all the way south to just north of downtown Milwaukee and served the Schlitz and Pabst breweries. To think, 40 years ago this was one of the busiest pieces of industrial railroad in the country. Now it will probably turn into a interpretive nature trail. So goes indsutry in Milwaukee these days. Maybe they can build some more condos on the right of way.
Is it true that the former CNW Mitchel yard has also closed? If true it is hard to believe. Is there anything still being made in the Beer City?
I don’t know whether it’s true, but we did quit classifying cars for Mitchell this past month. More work must be being done at Butler. Mitchell was always a strange place, with just one entrance to the main line. I only went down into that hole once.
Mitchell yard was a nice yard. Never needed to worry about hand brakes as the yard was a bowl. Let a car go and it would just go to the low point. It was a hard place to setout going west.
I have noticed that to when. I go by mitchell yard over here on the south side of the city there are only a couple of auto racks sitting there and a few box cars also sitting there. I have also seen a MOW truck sitting on one of the tracks. It kinda looks like a snow plow but i think it moves the new ballast off the tracks when it’s laid on the tracks. It is sure sad to see rail tracks being pulled up and rail yards closing. One other thing I have seen Cp rail the ones that run along miller park way they have spray painted some of the tracks and also they have laid down New ballast on some of the tracks.
It goes the same here in St. Louis, except for Anheuser-Busch, who still operate their brewery and their own personal Manufacturer’s Rwy. It seems as though all the old cities are being evacuated and businesses are either going south, or out of the country.
I get to Milwaukee about every 10 years, and was last there about 3 years ago. It does seem to have changed a lot. But you still have more German-speaking people than we have. I can get up a Gespräch (conversation in German) there easier than here. One of my favorite places.