Early Amtrak Across Wisconsin
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ย. 2024
- On May 1, 1971, Amtrak became Wisconsin's rail passenger carrier. Passenger service along the Burlington Northern's Mississippi River Route ended as did all service on the Chicago & North Western. Famous train names such as the Milwaukee Road's Hiawathas, C&NW's Streamliners, and Burlington Northern's North Coast Limited disappeared. When Amtrak began, only the Empire Builder and Chicago-to-Milwaukee corridor service were spared, and the Builder was rerouted from the BN onto the Milwaukee's Twin Cities line.
By November, 1971, Amtrak was ready for some new Wisconsin trains. Added were Hiawatha trains to the Twin Cities; North Coast Hiawatha trains to Seattle via Southern Montana; and St. Louis service through Chicago to Milwaukee. Things were looking up for Wisconsin's rail passenger service!
The first vestiges of Amtrak paint slowly appeared in 1972 and in 1973 there were brand new Amtrak engines. However, mismatched "Rainbow" consists were still the rule. GM&O heavyweight parlor cars often appeared as did Denver, Kansas City and California Zephyr Silver dome-observation cars. Soon the E and F locomotives would disappear forever, but in these vintage years they still dominated the trains.
Early Amtrak Across Wisconsin follows Amtrak from the Twin Cities to Southern Wisconsin in the years 1971-73. Locations include such railroading hot spots as St. Croix Junction south of St. Paul, La Crosse, and Duplainville Tower west of Milwaukee. There are scenic views along the Mississippi River and many photo locations in the metro Milwaukee area. The Amtrak trains you will see include:
The Empire Builder
The Hiawatha
The North Coast Hiawatha
The Abraham Lincoln
what a hodge-podge of equiptment in the beginning. i love it
Rukkkis ya but the f40ph bro...best loco ever
Was a hodge-podge because of all the railroads that folded to become amtrak.
Mismatched rainbow consists, love them! Trains like you might see on some model railroads!!
Burlington Northern passenger trains were " Rainbow Trains " as well in 1970 & 1971. Burlington Route, Northern Pacific, & two Great Northern color schemes could all be seen in one train!
I am so happy tat someone back then took the time to film these trains.
I was 7 years old. And still remember these in 72 and 1973 was 9 years old. And Amtrak is going
BN is my favorite railroad of the 1970s. GN is my all time favorite
That scene at 3:53 is pretty amazing. I'm sure it isn't original sound, but it does sound pretty close unlike most other clips in this trailer and in other videos like this. It would have been amazing to get the real sound of one of those things blasting by at 90+.
At 0:36 that looks like Trempeleau Mountain on the Mississippi River -- "the Mountain that soaks in water."
BN's final Empire Builder was a true Rainbow Fleet, one that I think makes it the most interesting. And my favorite to model.
3:53, love those horns. My boy is hitting them rails. Got a schedule to keep.
Leslie S5T on the Santa Fe F7A pulling the Super Chief, now known as the Southwest Chief.
I just found this on DVD at St. Francis' Thrift Store!
I've actually never taken a passenger train in America before, only ever in Britain, China, Japan, and Continental Europe. I've only ever ridden on tourist railroads like the Strasburg, but seeing these films makes me wish I could take an Amtrak train when they used these creative looking consists.
I own this DVD and highly recommended for your rail archives. I hope see Amtrak footage of the late 1970s to the early 1990s.
I miss those old bridges, like the one at 3:15. 🌉
What an era!
I have the CB&Q California Zephyr plus the GN Empire Builder. Good video. Its a shame we don't see trains as beautiful as that today!
This is great! E units, SDP40fs, BN, UP, Milwuakee....too much good stuff! Thanks so much for sharing:)
Bought this DVD and Empire Builders to Milwaukee on Sat. and totally enjoyed them both. Hopefully, the photog has more footage.
Yes, thats the Southern 4501 on the Schlitz Circus Train. My mom, 5 year old sister and 7 year old me were standing unknowingly right next to the guy shooting the movie as it passed through our hometown of Waterloo, WI. at Harrison St. My sis lets out a brief scream as the train approaches that can be heard on the DVD.
Thats amazing!
I believe the horn is an old cast Nathan P5.
Great videos !
I love the equipment on your videos so much history!!
I used to go up to Oconomowoc to watch the Hiawatha roll through at 90 + mph
Where can you purchase the films narrirated by this guy? I saw this same film at the Green Bay national Railroad Museum.
3:53, I railfan that place all the time! Mazon, IL!
3:53
Yeah - try Fargo/Moorhead in the dead of Winter... then the long flat stretch to & though Eastern Montana...
I just realised the narrator is the game guy who did the narration for the ‘Firepower’ military documentary DVD series. Either that or they sound REALLY similar 😅
Great classic passenger train footage! 5*****
Whoa!!!!! grate, grate video!!!!!!!!!!
May 1st, 1971, Amtrak begins in passenger service
At 3:16 it looks like the circus train's running right on the grass...you can barely see the track LOL
3:16 looks like the circus train
We railfans used to drive to Oconomowoc (an hour drive) to watch the Hi' blast through town in the snow at 90 + mph... what a thrill
We did the same thing in Hartland!!!
I was born in 1950.I got to see the end of three cultureal shifts and the beginning of a new one . . ."baby-boomers.6 surrounded in 1950.s by modernism (men and women returning home to a new life.pockets flushed with spendable cash propelled and dipped us into the Golden Age of the wonderful 1950s and 1960s.Hartland has MY SOUL!!! My brothers and I would fall asleep to the steam engine's drivers clicking and hear that long long low whistle.Every day Mom would take us to the little Hartland train station to see those groumd-blast freight trains pulled by the 4-8-4s and the high speed
HIAWATHA'S ! ! ! ! ! ! !
replete with telegragh machine,green visor and spectacles!!! Those freight trains and Hiawatha's were clocked at 90.7 mph after they rounded that Peewaukee bend in the East .That light crept so slowly rounding that bend we thought it would never head straight West
ALAS,Here SHE COMES !!!
I have wondered if the passenger equipment and diesels were saved once they were retired
The Union Pacific Railroad Co. Can Only Restore The Floridian! in 1986.
great compilation video
Can you do one on the GB&W and A&W. Two major wisconsin railways
It would be nice to see the North Coat Hiawatha return. Its also a sad state how primitive our country is with rail travel. People complain about the pollution, global warming, and the traffic on the highways, but yet, they choose to forget about rail transportation as a necessity to resolve these issues or at least slow them down.
...yeah I remember the "rainbow trains".
Sadly i never got to see them.
@@taublix315 at least there is pictures and footage to show it
@@bluerazor7049 yeah
Amtrak should bring back their EMD E & F units, as well as the SDP40F (Revised and redone), P30CH (Revised and redone), and other locomotives that they used to have like the Pennsylvania GG1's and GE E60's.
In the end, in my opinion, any Locomotive can be useful, and can last a very long time with proper maintenance and care. If locomotives need to be redone to qualify for tier 4 emission standards, then they should be redone.
@micmac99, hey it is even weirder for me because I remember getting on an amtrak train like that sometime in the '70's.
I think originally Amtrak simply used railroad passenger cars in their original livery; however, you may have seen some cars in the video that were in Amtrak colors. Eventually, most of the equipment looked the same, at least on the outside. As rando points out, however, in 1975 (or thereabouts) Amtrak started buying new equipment (probably Amfleet), painted of course in Amtrak colors, and the Superliners came out in 1979-80.
Beautiful train, cars look like Northern Pacific or was that the B units we saw.
I hate how the recording is cut off prior to seeing the entire consist. Is the full DVD like this?
It's just criminal that they canceled most of those wonder full trains. Reducing the Hiawatha route to a dinky corridor route? That's an insult to the train. But at least we have the Empire Builder. Let's hope nothing happens to that!
traindude80 Amtrak’s Hiawatha Route is run exactly how the Milwaukee road ran it for their last time. When the Milwaukee built its transcontinental route, they went too far over budget, and I mean by millions upon millions of dollars over budget. This eventually grew out of control and as a last ditch effort to save the Milwaukee Road, they sold off the line to Great Northern, who then made the empire builder service. The Milwaukee Road by then had gotten rid of all Hiawatha services, such as the Olympian Hiawatha, the Northwoods Hiawatha, etc... They then made a new service from Milwaukee to Chicago called the Hiawatha. And then they went bankrupt. Great northern merged with Burlington Route and the two later merged with the Santa Fe, creating BNSF, but had already stopped service on the empire builder when Amtrak was created. Amtrak is innocent, for the most part. They did stop using the F40PH as their main source of road power so that’s a big guilty in my books. At least they still use a couple F40PHs.
3:53 is that ATSF Super Chief in Mazon, IL?
0:23 is La Crosse, WI crossing of BN at the time. Heading for Minnesota (Westbound)
Actually, it was BN, C&NW, and Milwaukee.
I wonder if the super chief scene's sound at 3:53 is real.
at the 3:20 mark, watch out for the smoke, haha
Amtrak should run more rainbow trains. Or at least, with it's own paint scheme. After all, it has five versions now.
They should go back to the phase 3 scheme and stick with it the one now looks to generic.
Love it.
That locomotive was GM&O E7. The train was the Abraham Lincoln.
You're right, they should credit the trains in Alaska. :D
3:26 that’s the southern #4501!
was that steam southern engine 4501
The 1972 And Steam Powered 1973 Milwaukee Circus Tains Appear!
The 1994, And Diesel Powered 1995 Sunset Circus Trains Appear!
Yeah,that's a bummer
I thought the BN railroad was a fright railroad not a passenger train
In it's first year, 1970, the BN took over passenger trains from the SP&S, NP, CB&Q, and GN. 1 year later, Amtrak was made
Bn was pretty much always a freight rr.
It looks like around the time they got the new eqipment, it went slower. LOL I was Born in 1981
Yeah it is. Look closely and you can see the word, "southern" on the tender.
Was this back when they didn't derail everyday?
Interesting how on early Amtrak "rainbow" consists you have everything from SP to BN to Union Pacific and others. Weird!
back when the rails had flavor to them. Now they all look alike.
Why does Amtrak get so little funding ?? Is there no passenger rail lobbyists??
It all goes to the fat cats in the school systems.
These are pretty cool, but I like P42's and Superliners a bit more, even though I am "old?"
It is running on the grass or should I say weeds. Some of the tracks are like that were I live most of the tracks are still used but some have been ripped out. Which sucks if only I had Hank Hills lawn mower to get rid of the DAMN weeds.
like train
Has Amtrak ever broke even or made a profit?
@SHADOWNADO where is train day?
Can anyone suggest where to find the 1950's train horn sounds. thaks
Pretty much anything that doesn't begin with an "RS" and isn't part of the K5LA/HL/LLH/whatever family was in production in the 1950s. You're going to have to be a bit more specific.
@@ErickC Thanks!
oh yeah
"Rail Passenger Carrier"--WTF? And what is a "first vestige?"
Whoaa 3:38 - 3:44 creepy light O__O
It’s called a Mars light
2:55 whats the horn?
Leslie S3L with dead 44 bell. I.E. a Leslie S2A.
@@TrainTrackTrav : I should note that the actual horn on the unit was probably a PM-990. BN didn't use the S3L/PM-920.
@@ErickCBN did have a small handful of S3Ls/PM920s on some of their units. Other units had S5Ts.
What r the cool blue cars
Great Northern livery passenger cars
Ryan Mcminn "Big Sky Blue". 1967-1971.
I did the 800th like, just to let you know
Ok PC Or Penn Central has e8
0:48
just like druing the merger american west airlines and us airways 2004 to 2007
1 engine per car lol
seriously who cares about soo line these days?
Bob Rivard does, I imagine...
My mind was just shocked from what Amtrak used to be like when they were first founded and started revenue service. Also, I got quite emotional on these old clips as well. 🥹🥹.
like train