http://www.waymarking.com/gallery/image.aspx?f=1&guid=32a9b586-bad8-4113-9f32-4f285b0b7a65
I’ve been there but do not remember this part being on the tour. However you see that distant boulevard before the lakefront. A little ways before that street was the former C&NW twin track line to North Milwaukee that handled the Northern Departures out of the former Lakefront C&NW Depot (Flambeu 400, Twin Cities 400, Manitowoc / Two Rivers trains, etc). So it is not likely the walkway or path made it to the lake as I do not remember a pedestrian over or underpass there.
The former C&NW line is now a bike path that roughly parallels Lincoln-Memorial Drive North of the foot of Wisconsin Ave, where the old Depot used to be it even turns West right before the Drive does and goes under a bridge or through a Tunnel…can’t remember. It is climbing a grade the whole time it is heading North along Lincoln Memorial Drive attempting to reach near the hieght of the bluff there but stays just below street level for a bit as it heads West. Pretty neat engineering of a passenger train railroad grade, IMO.
IIRC did not Wisconsin have a prohibition against payments for rail until recently?
The IGN
I’d hardly call that a rail operation. It looks more like an outdoor version of the “inclinators” at the Luxor Hotel in Lost Wages.