Hi once again. I went by Up’s mitchell yard on Milwaukee’s south side and. I noticed that it has bunch of cars now that it seems to have filled up all of the tracks. Or from what. I could have seen I do remember a form from a couple nights ago that someone was talking about mitchell yard maybe closing down. But maybe it has gotten a new lease on life which a good thing cause. It is always a very sad thing to see a rail yard close. Even though Up has another rail yard up in butler. That is bigger but it would make sense to keep mitchell open so it. Would be easier to serve the companies on the south and southeast side of milwaukee. Like the recycling plant on 21st and Morgan and jones island and any other business that has a rail dock. To me it would make more sense to keep cars and a couple loco’s at mitchell to serve these companies so when they need cars all they have to is fire up an engine and hook up a string of cars and run them down to say the recycling plant and switch them out. I think it would be a big pain to run a string of cars down from the. Butler yard to the south side to switch out a string of cars. At a plant when you have a rail yard only 1 mile away from where you need a new set of cars. Also I would think it would make more fuel sense to keep the mitchell yard open with diesel prices up around 4.15 a gallon depending on where you are and yes. I know that railroads buy there diesel in bulk but even then it is still expensive for them to run a short train from Butler, wisconsin to 21st and Morgan and back again. Now I could see if the the train crew had more then one stop and had more then just 8 cars on the train now say if the crew had a stop at the recycling plant and then moved onto say jones island for switching duties. Now I could see that because then you are running a train say of 30 cars and an a engine instead of just 8 cars and an a engine. Oh well thanks for listening to me ramble and thanks for and replies to this subject.
Hey Railfan,
It is my understanding that UP closed the yard around the first of the year. You will notice, they took down the Mitchell signs from the building, I guess that makes it official??
But it doesn’t look like they intend to tear up the yard tracks any time soon. I suppose they will continue to “un-officially” switch there & they can service those small accts while they are in the area.
Was the CNW caboose still there? The last time I was over there, it was frozen to the ground with about 4-5 inches of ice frozen around the wheels.
I will have to swing by there & give a look.
Larry in Wauwatosa
Hey, Larry
The last time I went by the yard the caboose was still there but it may be gone now since. All of the snow has finally melted but I did go by the yard yesterday and there was some action going on down there with some sort of MOW trucks. I do know that last week and maybe even the week before the railroad was doing something along the tracks. It looked like they were dredging along side the tracks so water can drain better so it does not flood the tracks. During the heavy rain season I did see it going on as. I would go over the bridges on 9th PL. and 13th St. in milwaukee. But then again since i was driving so I could not stop and watch them work along the tracks.
PAT IN MILWAUKEE
I was going to start a new thread on Mitchell Yard but decided to bump this old post instead. Anyone have any updated information on what is to be of this decrepit yard?
Nobody?