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I updated this page from 2005, and moved it to an active server in 2012.
This locomotive in yellow paint was by the Wisconsin Rapids yard office in August 2004.
I consider it rare to see it away from the mill. Often well hidden by the big buildings and way out of sight. I find it's easier to get close to mill engines when they are outside of the mill fence. |
For two years, the new paper mill owner, Stora Enso of Finland, was applying their corporate image around the area.
On Saturday March 5th, 2005, we were driving along hiway 10 by Junction City and saw a train.
I didn't plan to stop, and said to the wife to practice taking a picture.
(it didn't turn out so good, but I didn't tell her I normally wouldn't try a tough moving side-lit picture anyway....)
I didn't know the third unit was the little SW until the train roared past. We didn't turn around to give chase.
(As Keith might agree, some trains are moving fast enough already that they don't need to be chased out of town.)
It turns out that it was on a hot train to Superior (Pokegama) and they didn't stop to set it out in Stevens Point.
Two days later, it comes back south to Stevens Point.
On both rear corners of the cab are lights... for remote control. I don't know if that has been actually used at the mill.
I would guess the Plover Patrol (a night train) hauled it to Wisconsin Rapids.
Once inside the mill fence, it disappears from close-up public view.
The repainted gray loco Stora Enso 1 / CPI 1 broke and sat for a month in late 2006, according to internet messages. The WC/CN provided switchers to fill in. A BNSF orange stripe switcher was working the mill for a while in 2006.. And the gray loco was sent south on a UP train. It came back later.
The mill tried gp's and even a day with the CN gp and slug set from the Stevens Point yard, but the visibility from SW-type switchers was considered much safer in the close quarters around mill buildings.
Is the gray loco there yet? Not used much in 2012? Just a back-up loco? The gray, red, and orange paint looked more like brown in 2010.
The blue GMTX 200 switcher is still around in 2012.
Some links to old pictures of CPI 1 are on
Dan Ross Wisconsin Short Lines and industrial railroads
and go to his Consolidated Water Power & Paper Co.section. The link worked in 2012.
Links to my older webpages about this loco:
CPI 1 in well-used yellow in 2004 (and it was fixed and returned in gray paint)
aerial of Rapids mill and the engine house
Blue GMTX 200 SW in Rapids
The links are to old web pages. The core site still has good pages, but I haven't belonged to them in years. They are very nice to leave the information available yet.
The Next Generation site sometimes doesn't work if they are busy.
You'll have to use BACK to return to this page. The return links on those pages are old.
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Link back to my 2012 index page, Bruce's RailRoad Pictures
Wrote March 7, 8, 2005; re-wrote and put on train web site in 2012.
