Hello all, I posted a thread about this in the main forum but decided to post it here as well because Mitchell Yard is currently owned by the Union Pacific. Mitchell Yard is in Milwaukee near 43rd and Lincoln and has been "abandoned" for about five years with the exception of the UP-CP interchange every so often. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or facts about what is to become of the yard. Thanks in advance!
When I was working there Mitchell yard was pretty busy but as all the manufacturing left Milwaukee, the yard became unnecessary. The Milwaukee had 2 jobs a day in the late 70s that went from Five Rings to Mitchell yard to interchange and a switcher that lived at Mitchell yard. The demise of the yard is directly related to the economy of the city.. tourist dollars are supposed to make up the loss..... Randy
So I assume you worked for C&NW then? Thank you for the reply. As I am only 20 years old I only have few memories of the yard in operation. Any noteworthy or historical stories you would like to share?
No , I worked for the Milwaukee , we had to go to Mitchell yard on the night shift to do the daily inspection on the switch engine every night. We also had to inspect the engine (s) at Glendale yard and Chestnut street. It wasn't long after I started they closed the shops and 3500 of us lost our jobs in Milwaukee. Now the shops are gone.. still hard to believe. Randy
Ironically, I have some news about Mitchell. On my drive to school today I noticed multiple UP trucks and police cars in the yard where the office used to be. There was a giant hunk of metal blocking the mainline. I asked to know what happened and this is what I was told: A freight was stacked too high and the load scraped the bottom of the 35th street bridge which in turn bent the girders supporting the bridge. It will be quite a clean up job and an engineer still has to see if the bridge is structurally sound. Sounds like Union Pacific will be spending a lot of money cleaning this wreck up...
The Milwaukee used to try the same thing once a year with the 6th street viaduct with the same results. Randy
