hey,
i also would need some help on the WSOR.
the yards i would wanna check out & need spots for watching & taking pics
Horicon
North Milwaukee
janesville
Madison
& any other yards they have.
also i do know some spots such as slinger, interchange w/ cn
Rugby Junction another interchange w/ CN & line going into milwaukee
Duplainville trackage rights on cn to grand ave in waukesha.
thats all know on the WSOR
if any one can give me some info i would gladly appricieate it
Usually not much to see in Horicon. Switch job is at night.
Milwaukee has a day job. Not the best place to be after dark.
Janesville has stuff moving all the time. Most of the yard is away from any streets, but the turntable and roundhouse are fairly accessible from public property.
Madison is tucked in its location, not much to see from public property.
Granville (107th and Brown Deer) has the UP interchange, and where the ML and HM usually swap trains. Often the UP will be there in the same time frame. Brown Deer Rd. goes over on a big bridge.
The connector at Rugby has been severed. All interchange is at Ackerville.
I am fond of railfanning in downtown Slinger, WI which has the WSOR branch to Horicon and the old SOO/WC/CN main within about a hundred feet of one another. On a nice summer’s evening when I am up near there I will frequently get a Subway sandwich from the shop in Slinger (about a half mile away also in downtown Slinger) and sit (with my scanner on) in the local oil company office parking lot which gives me a good view of the CNsignals (lots more trains on the CN) and I simply relax and enjoy. You may want to try it sometime.
They do make a ‘local’ run to Oshkosh on Tuesdays and Fridays usually in early afternoon. Train sometimes has SD40-2’s for power but usually the GP38-2’s. Speeds are usually slower (~25ish) and theres lots of places to take pictures.
You’ll be heading in my cousins Town. He lives in slinger. I always rember watching the WSOR and WC, but don’t rember the locos or any thing else. I don’t know if this is true but he said like 90 trains a day go through there. Happy railfanning! BTW, I hope you can get some WC Locos down there too.
The old WC line has quite a few trains on it daily, but I don’t believe the count is as high as 90.
Yeah, I was thinking that was kinda high.
I’d definitely say 90 is a tad bit high. 90 trains would be a train every 15 minutes! The CN does run quite a few trains on that track though, as it’s the bottom part of the “funnel” created by the ex WC CN lines towards Chicago. The CN seems to go in kicks and spurts too. When I’ve railfanned over there, it usually seems like there will be a fleet or three or four trains, and then a good stretch of time without anything. But like any railroad, things vary.
Anyway, on the WSOR, the list Mike gave is a good one. Max speed on the WSOR is 25 MPH with much of the traffic being 10, so if you can find a train you’ve got a good chance of chasing. If you just want to sit in once place, try Janesville first. There is almost always something going on, whether it just be a locomotive being worked on around the roundhouse, or a yard job, or a train coming in from points North or South.
If you want to chase a WSOR trains, one of the trains I’ve always had pretty good luck with is the WSOR M3 out of Madison. This train makes a turn from Madison to Reedsburg on the old CNW branch, working industries along the way. He usually leaves the yard Sunday afternoons between 2 and 4, and makes for a good chase North to at least Baraboo, and even to Reedsburg if you want to keep chasing after dark.
There are other WSOR trains that make for a good chase too, but I don’t know as much about most of them, as I live at the far end of the system. About the only thing I see of the WSOR regularly is the M3.
Noah
I’ve caught this run in Brandon,
where the Markesan branch leaves the “main”. They leave most of the
train just south of the Hwy. 49 crossing, then come into town to switch
to the Markesan branch, usually a daily run that arrives around 10 a.m.
After they make the Markesan run, they come back and pick-up the rest
of the train and procede to Ripon, and as was mentioned, occasionally
run to Oshkosh.
I’ve yet to see the SD-40’s up here, as most of
the power on this run is the GP-38’s. I have heard of some of the
SD-20’s sneaking in though.