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I finished my CD about the end of some railroading in western Wisconsin. It covers several railroad branchlines that have been abandoned and removed from the 1970's to 1999. There are pictures and stories from a dozen people. |
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Like the meeting of the continental railroads, the CD is enough to get the job done, even though it might be 'rough riding'.
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It's time to get this history CD into circulation. Some people half my age are wondering what I've collected. They are enjoying the trails made after the rails, but didn't see what actually was there. Most of the megabytes cover Eau Claire's Milwaukee Road and Soo Line branches, and the CNW line to Cornell.
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Here's the contents:
Maps of Eau Claire area Railroads. I hand-drew a big one and labelled some railroad information on it.
Shawtown Spur or the Eau Claire Industrial Lead of the CNW, that went to the Nestle's plant
Eau Claire CNW Depot, one page of pictures
Soo Line in the Eau Claire area. Many pictures and stories.
CNW Eau Claire Tower, with lots of thanks to Bob Gile for pictures when it was in operation.
Uniroyal Tire Plant (US Rubber Co.) (and Banbury Place) of Eau Claire, and topics related to all three railroads.
Milwaukee Road in the Eau Claire area, and all the way to Reads Landing, Minnesota,
and the pontoon bridge. I included my pontoon drawings in HO scale.
Porter 0-4-0 steam engine Little Dinky no 2 of Wissota Sand and Gravel of Eau Claire is still on display in Irvine Park in Chippewa Falls in 2008. (2 of my pictures)
CNW Altoona Roundhouse, two pictures, courtesy of Dan Kwarciany
Old RR history construction dates, copied from one web page, and some links.
Some contemporary railroading of Eau Claire on tracks that are still there. This CD is about rails now abandonned, but I do include a few scenes of contemporary railroading, special events, and an Amtrak detour.
Menomonie CNW RR spur.
Mondovi CNW RR, and there is just a little info from Arlyns' historical book project.
Cornell C&NW RR with many pictures along the line, including Jim Falls and Norma (Chippewa Falls)
Also, the CNW Chippewa River bridge fire as told by the Chipewa Falls Fire Department, and the repair.
Merrillan, with many pictures by Bob Gile.
Black River Falls branch of the CNW RR, by Bob G.
Stanley Lumber Co Siding in the mill pond, 1984, by Bob G.
Weyerhauser Soo Roundhouse, one picture by Bob G.
Rice Lake has several pages by several contributors.
Turtle Lake line of the CNW, with just one picture and one map.
Glenwood City Soo Line, with the state rail plan. Mostly a map series.
Stillwater, Minnesota, a picture of the dinner train.
Osceola and Dresser pictures of an active rail area yet. I include it here because it is related to the next topics. And it has pretty scenery.
Danbury Subdivision, Soo Line. Bear country.
Amery to Almena abandoned sometime after 1990. It was once part of the original Soo Line and that major east-west line across Wisconsin and Michigan.
Bemidji Subdivision of the Soo Line, all in Minnesota. Moose Lake to Schley. Mostly maps and a few right of way pictures.
Some pictures were from the year they pulled the rails and ties.
DWP Tunnel and the scenic bluff of Duluth, Minnesota. A favorite of mine, when I lived closer to it.
Greenwood branchline of the Soo Line. It's not western Wisconsin to some people, but this Cd is a good home for the information.
If your favorite railroad isn't shown, that doesn't mean it wasn't important.
There wasn't enough time to cover it all before the rails were pulled up.
So many tracks, so little time.
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The Cd is not perfect. But it's time to get it circulated. I didn't tidy up my web pages. It was good enough when I started it over 10 years ago. An easy way to view it anyway you like is to use the easy zoom view features of modern browsers to make up for the size of pictures that I used. With todays better equipment, all of my slides could be re-scanned. But its not worth the delay. Many people have wanted to see this information. And some people have passed away since I collected their informtion.
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Bruce Oldenberg
2360 Jelinski Circle
Plover, WI 54467
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Thank you for keeping history alive.
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 was posted in February, 2012
