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Junction city is one of the few places in Wisconsin with a railroad crossing where both lines belong to the same railroad. An eastbound train has backed south and down to Hiawatha Siding and set out some hoppers. |
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I see the 2 upside-down triangles of yellow and black to designate where a snow plow operator has to lift the blade clear for the diamond and then the gravel road crossing.
And the 3 black signs would be markers for the 3 switches ahead.
Why aren't they all triangles?
| They return to their train that is in the siding on the west side of town. |
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And after a westbound clears, they head east toward Stevens Point. (quadcopter picture) |
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One more view of the diamond, looking northeast. There's curved tracks in each quadrant. Two trains a day use the northeast corner, many trains come straight along the main line, like that auto rack. A few trains, like the Wood Tick, and the UP on trackage rights from Superior to Necedah via Wisconsin Rapids, use the southwest. UP coal trains to north Weston Power go across the picture. I don't know if the northwest corner (the left side of this picture) sees much use anymore, it was ok for coal trains from the west, but coal hasn't run that direction for years. |
The picture on the right is looking way west, after the auto rack train left the siding.
The blue building with the white EAT on the roof is the Bunny Hop restaurant, a nice little place.
The big highway is the former US 10 before it became a 4-lane that bypassed the town.
In the 'old days' you could tell a train had passed north out of Junction City by watching the surge in backed-up auto traffic that had been waiting at the highway crossing.
There are some interesting small buildings that would fit good on a model railroad.
Like this former feed mill, with a sliding door for unloading boxcars. (that spur is long gone)
There's 5 small grain tanks, galvanized but getting rusty, with varying heights.
And a dust cyclone.
The 3 loading docks have an interesting stepped pattern.
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This view is looking southwest at the diamond. There are 2 taverns to the northwest and northeast of the diamond. Those little gray rectangles mark the throwing area for a game of horsehoes. |
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Looking east towards Stevens Point
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Looking way north at the track from Wausau. There's concrete pipe and orange barrels by Main Street, old US 10. About a half mile is tore up and getting fixed. On the horizon is the speck of a gray concrete bridge of the US Highway 10 four-lane overpass. |
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JO is the old telegrapher's designation for Junction City, Wisconsin, where the Milwaukee Road and Soo Line crossed. Now the tracks are all owned by CN |
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This page was photographed and wrote in October, 2016
