Whit

Whit .

Whit

I finally visited Whit siding since it was built a year ago.
That's where the UP coal trains are handed off to the the CN/WC crews for the final leg of their journey to the Weston Power Plant.

If I have mispelled Whit, please let me know.
As I understand this new siding, it is near the Whittlesey Cranberry bog.
There is no geographic feature that lends it's name to this area.
I didn't see any signs that outright said the name.
This is several miles west of Port Edwards, Wisconsin.
It's probably the one place on the railroad where compass east is timetable mileage west, or is it north?

. . . . . . . this is the Valley Sub of the WC/CN, former Milwaukee Road line to Wausau.
.

The east end is at County Highway GG.
This is flat sand country. The elevated view is from my pole camera.

I've never seen this type of signal before.

It wasn't lit.

This view is looking east at the west end of the siding.

.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . and there's another signal. And snow blowers and melters, and a power switch .

The west end is next to the bend of State Highway 173.
From the highway level, you barely see all this water.

It's a 'farm' pond where water is stored for irrigating, and flooding the nearby cranberry bogs for the harvest.
It's not 'public' water but people fish and enjoy the wildlife.

Just one dam holds all this water. A short railroad trestle crosses the creek.

There's plenty of cattails.

This is bog country, made by the glacial muck outflow at the tail end of the ancient glacial Lake Wisconsin.

The ground is soft here, and I wonder how much fill was hauled in here to build the railroad when it came through a century ago.
This was the Milwaukee Road Valley Line.

With the soft ground, I would plan train meets so the heavier loaded train stays on the old main and lighter trains would use the new siding.
At least until the ground settles after a few years.

A train wasn't parked here while I was here, but there is always a chance.
I suspect early evening would be a good time for an empty coal train.
The UP crews aren't qualified to run on the WC/CN from Junction City to Wausau. So trains are left here and CN crews finish the run to the power plant.
.

I don't know if the trains are coordinated to allow the inbound UP crew to transfer to an outbound empty.
The crew taxi could come from the Wisconsin Rapids yard office about 12 miles away. Or from Adams?

. . . . . . here's the rear of a UP coal empty when it is was passing south through Wisconsin Rapids at 5pm on a weekday.

Link back to my index page, Bruce's RailRoad Pictures

( the index page is now on the TrainWeb site, as of January 2011. And I will have to also keep the Next Generation index up-to-date also )
This page wrote in July 2011