LaCrosse Division Info Wanted

[slambo]

Hi everyone. My wife and I are about to start construction on our new N scale layout depicting the Milwaukee Road between Portage and LaCrosse, Wi. We've taken several photo safaris out to the line for structure and scenery research, but we need some more information on operations. We'd like to know what we would expect to see for traffic if we were fanning along the line in the early 80s, just before the railroad's fall.



We're modelling the line in 1984, but proto-freelancing a reason for Milw to remain alive - intermodal traffic Chicago-Seattle. In our layout, the Milwaukee threw more money at getting intermodal traffic than BN did and got the business instead of BN.



AdThanksVance for any pointers...



(EDIT: tried to correct links in sig...)

[ 15 March 2001: Message edited by: slambo ]

[Comet]

Sean,
I tried your links, but for some reason both were broken. "Unable to find server"
Please contact me at wabash_one@hotmail.com
thanks

[slambo]

Thanks for the heads up on the links. I've corrected it here and in my profile's sig. :cool:

[yankinoz]

Good Choice! I'm presently thinking along the same lines - but two owners later - CP/SOO District in 1993-5 from Portage to La Cross. I think I have some info about traffic in the 80's at home - I'll let ya know.

BTW - You are gonna need alot of coal hoppers :D

You wouldn't happen to have any pictures of the tunnel would you?

[yankinoz]

OK slambo - I was going to refer you to some old posts I had found on the MILW egroup on Yahoo! but as it turns out I would be referring you to yourself as you posted them! :rolleyes: From those posts it sounds like you enjoy local freights and this line has plenty - and by two different railroads to boot smile.gif

I will however, refer you to the cpheavyhaul group if you haven't been there. They deal with the operations over that line today and much of it hasn't changed since the '80s

For example (you are in luck) I checked GATS's copy of the Soo Line 1993 Review by Fred Hyde - thanks Gary smile.gif and MILW ran intermodal over this line. The sprint trains ran from St Paul to Chicago and "carried lucrative mail and UPS business... the service has been continued by Soo Line and has won back some business lost to BN during" the merger. I'm fairly sure these trains run to this day. So it would not be that much of a strech to have those trains originate in Seatle...

Also from Fred Hydes book: BN and C&NW deliver coal destined for WPL plants at Weston and Columbia. Soo and BN pooled power on these trains and I assume that MILW did the same(does anyone know?) The Columbia plant is just south of Portage but I'm not sure where Weston is. It's meant to be near Wausua and I think that is northwest of the area - it's been a few years. Does anyone know what route coal would take from La Cross to Weston?

Over at cpheavyhaul there are several posts that deal with this line in the past few weeks - Tunnel City in particular - as I too have been trying to gather as much info as possible.

About the C&NW trackage rights - They had a tunnel right next to MILW at tunnel city that collapsed in the 70's. Rather than rebuild, C&NW negotiated trackage rights from Tunnel City to La Cross or Winona (I'm not sure how they got from LAX to Winona)

edit - typo

[ 05 April 2001: Message edited by: yankinoz ]

[slambo]

Way cool, thanks, yankinoz!

Re: Tunnel City... I've got a couple photos of a CNW train entering the east portal, but I haven't had a chance to visit the west portal. I've found photos in the various books from both sides, and I saw the other portals there. I wondered what the story was about them, but thought they were a MILW realignment.

Re: Sparta... At the rail show in Madison (http://www.scwd-nmra.org/febshow) I picked up a model kit of the CNW depot at Sparta from the CNW Historical Society. The N scale kit was $40, and they had the same kit in HO as well (but I didn't get the price). The kit is actually based on the CNW standard plans and not any specific depot; however, I think it's right on for this prototype. The prototype in Sparta is now being used as the 400 Bike Trail office, and it's kept in really nice shape. Since it's within 50 feet of the MILW mainline, we've got to have it.

Re: Sprint and coal trains... I've started collecting equipment for use on these trains as well as the proposed Sea-Chi service, but haven't gotten very far yet. I've been collecting grain cars to handle the fall rush out of the plains states, now it's time to switch acquisition focus... Were the coal trains handled in conventional hoppers or were they in the now ubiquitous bathtub gons? My guess is that there were more of the conventional drop-bottom hoppers because of the era, but I haven't seen enough photos to verify this.

[yankinoz]

I would love to see that photo of the C&NW train at Tunnel City. Do you have a scanner? Do you remember what books you saw the other photos in?

The photo's in Fred Hydes book show normal hoppers - but there's only a few shots. I was hunting for decals and found that Odd Ball has a set for WEPX (WI Power and Light owns many of the hoppers that run / ran on these trains) bathtub gons that were new in 1996 - so I suspect that is probably when they appear. I am also looking for info on the hoppers used in the early 90's so I can find an appropriate H-oribly O-versized model.

There is some rather sketchy info floating around that that current tunnel is MILW's second one at that site. The first collapsed either during construction or shortly after completion. I'm not sure that I believe this story as it's always sort of vague - and probably stems from the ruins of the C&NW tunnel.

[slambo]

I'll see if I can get my tunnel shots up somewhere. I'm webmaster of enough sites that I should be able to find _someplace_ to put them...

I think the book pictures are in the Morning Sun book on the Milwaukee in Wisconsin. I'll look again at home, but I won't be able to verify it here until next week because the Ntrak group I'm in is displaying in Rockford, IL, this weekend, and we're driving down there tonight. Then, on Monday I've got a board meeting for the SCWD (http://www.scwd-nmra.org) on Monday night...

BTW, your profile says you're in Ozland. I don't suppose you need more local correspondent for prototype research... I'm in Madison, WI, about an hour south of Portage.

Also, you might not know about it, but Microsoft (of all companies) has a database of satellite photos online that covers part of this route. At http://www.terraserver.net you can see some pretty cool sat images from LaCrosse to about Bangor (I couldn't get the search to start in LaCrosse, but it found West Salem ok). For the areas where the sat photos are unavailable, they've got the USGS topo maps online at the same site.

[yankinoz]

Thanks Mate - I have been checking out Terraserver - but I couldn't sort out the relationship between Portage and Wausua and at the time I think it was kinda late here. Anyway - the topo map of Tunnel City is great! You can clearly make out the cuts and fills leading the the old C&NW tunnel:

http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/robnamy/tcramp.jpg

I found some HO gons in WEPX by E&C Shops (now LBF) on the web. I didn't realize the Coalporters dated back to the '80s. So now I'm not so sure. Maybe both were in use? Here is some more info from Railspot.
http://www.railspot.com/gif/mail/wiscrr/mar99/msg00032.html

Hmmm.

Edit - correction and about me:

about me: I was born in Neenah WI, grew up in Stockton IL and at 12 we moved to Rockton where I went to High School - I know Rockford very well smile.gif The next 14 years get wierd but the end result is OZ.

[ 06 April 2001: Message edited by: yankinoz ]