Milwaukee Road (MILW) Last Run Racine & Southwestern / Elkhorn, WI ~1982
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ธ.ค. 2024
- Recorded by Elkhorn Area High School students witnessing the Milwaukee Road clearing out the line in anticipation of abandonment circa 1982. The footage begins in Elkhorn near the site of the former depot with engines MILW 955 (GP20) and MILW 486 (MP15AC) running east on the main track. The rear of their train is in the siding. The engines are heading east of Elkhorn to pick up a long string of boxcars stored on the main line. The footage continues at MacLean Road showing the crew picking up additional cars stored east of the road. The footage ends at County Road F (near where the poster grew up) showing the entire train, consisting entirely of Milwaukee Road boxcars save one BN boxcar, heading somberly westward to points unknown.
It is presumed this was one of, if not the final run of the Milwaukee Road on this portion of the historic Racine & Southwestern. The line was purchased by the State of Wisconsin and the portion west of Elkhorn, was briefly operated by the Central Wisconsin and the Wisconsin & Western, laid dormant for several years then was revived by the Wisconsin & Calumet. The line was rehabbed in 1996 and is currently operated by the Wisconsin & Southern. The line east of Elkhorn was abandoned and converted to a bike trail.
Footage was provided by the late Neil Thieleke, railfan and longtime teacher in the Elkhorn Area School District.
The BN box at the tail of that train, pictured in a video about the abandonment of Milwaukee property, is a little ironic.
Classic Milwaukee Road, bay window caboose seen at the end. Thanks for sharing!
I always love the Milwaukee Road. They went through our backyard, years ago.
Would love to see footage of that line west of Beloit, into Illinois. I grew up outside of Durand, IL within a stone’s throw of the rails. I think about those days a lot.
Thanks for documenting this once in a lifetime event
Thanks for sharing! My father worked for The Milwaukee. He worked for the piggyback division, and it was known as the MMTC - Milwaukee Motor Transportation Co. He stayed until the end when the SOO took over operations out of the Bensenville, IL terminal. What's interesting is there were at least two contenders to keep the piggyback operations going without being sold as a separate entity, the CNW and CP had looked at that option. Employees like my father would have kept their jobs had this happened but the SOO had no interest, and that division was sold and became third party operations, and the rest is history.
I wonder how many of those boxcars ended up being sold to the Wisconsin Central Ltd. railroad in later years. They purchased alot of Milwaukee Road boxcars and other rolling stock from Soo Line in the late 80's to early 90's for their startup.
I know of two ex Milwaukee road box cars that's being used to house horses on the lacrosse / Monroe county line in western wis.
Those have been out there forever. There was a wreck near Sparta, and they dragged a couple of those damaged cars out to that property.
I was wondering about crossing protection at MacLean Rd, as I take that way to church and cross the bike path. Great video! I always hoped to see a train on this line, but started railfanning it far too late. Probably the biggest shock was when I went to scope out Spring Valley Rd, by that time the bypass was already beginning to be built!
Thanks for posting this amazing footage.
I'll bet CPKC would love to have this line today. It was incredible shortsightedness to let this line go.
Excellent footage, thanks for posting.
Sad sad sad.😢
As a former Union Railroad man. I hate to say it but. The writing was on the wall many times for the Milwaukee road. They actually should've spun all the branch lines off .and kept all the double main line from Washington to Chicago and on to Kansas city . If they did that when the economy was at a high point and fired all of the top management that came from the B.N. To sabotage the Milwaukee road. They would still be here today. Especially with the S.P Container business out West .
Couldn't agree with you more!! Our family lived along the Milwaukee Chehalis Sub south of Tacoma from 1974 to 1983. Traffic there was about 5 trains daily. 3 Portland trains connecting with SP and 2 locals - Hoquiam Local and WAM Logger. A bunch of young upstarts that weren't around at the time try to relegate their demise to bad management but you gotta look at who had the most to gain by eliminating the Milwaukee. Bill Edgar, a former employee of the Chicago & Northwestern, was sent west to report on whether purchasing the Embargoed Western Extension would be a viable investment for C&NW to have its own mainline to the West. Of course, we know the result of that report since the BN saboteurs let the railroad get in such bad shape by greatly reducing maintenance in the 1970's. Mr. Edgar did have quite a brilliant observation: at the time of the BN merger, the ICC should've only let GN and the Quincy merge so GN could have access to Chicago and Milwaukee Road and Norther Pacific merge since the two roads paralleled each other most of the way through Montana and Washington State and other areas. This would've probably eliminated the potential monopoly BN eventually realized in the Northwest once they bankrupted the Milwaukee.
Well what do you know? MILW 955 ended up as Georgetown RR 9055. I'd have to go back and look through my pics from the last 3 or 4 years to see if it's still active or if it's been semi-permanently parked.
A Great railroad 😊
Great to see a gp10 in action.
They are termed GP20s and we had a slew of about 20 at Chicago central....they were rebuilt to 2000 horse power by the Milwaukee road
Amazing how good those old 40' boxcars look! Today's TTX owned boxcars are covered with graffiti.
Rail line through Union grove?
Yes it formerly ran from Racine through to Sturtevant, Union Grove, Kansasville, Burlington, Elkhorn, and beyond. A small section still exists in Sturtevant connecting the CPKC mainline to the UP mainline at Waxdale.
I have been trying to find this video for months because of how it speaks to The Milwaukee Road's state at the time. It is genuinely sad to see
Thanks Reagan
Your welcome!
So sad 😢
So what wound up happening to the rail line? Was it abandoned?
Elkhorn to Bardwell (junction with the J line) is currently Wisconsin & Southern. East of Elkhorn to the west side of Burlington is now bike path, as is east of the Fox River in Burlington to just west of Kansasville. A remnant of the line remains in Burlington, operated by Canadian National (WC) to serve Nestle and Ardagh Glass.
Clinton Jct to Beloit Jct is operated by UP.
basically some lines were turned into trails, others were bought, not many railroads that closed in that time period abandoned their track, it was usually turned into a trail or bought by another company
When commuter service was cut back to Fox lake in 83