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Colby Box Factory

Colby Box Factory

The Colby box factory is having a new facility built in Marshfield.

I am remembering some history, and took some pictures in Summer 2018.

There has been a 'box factory' in Colby a long time. One of the early ones made cheese boxes, made of thin wood.
Now-a-days, boxes are made of cardboard, and this building is better known as Packaging Corp of America Colby division.

This is the south end of the building in Colby, with Highway 13 and the truck docks..

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For some reason, I was always impressed with this little rail siding that is on the northwest corner.
On my first model railroad, I kept all my tracks flat to try to make trains stay on the rails. And it was easy to keep it flat, it was solid plywood. So, to see one track 3 feet below another was a big deal to this kid in central Wisconsin.

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I saw an old map showing that this siding had 2 ends in the 'old days' like maybe 1960.
I don't have a picture of what was south of here, but for a long time there were wooden fences of a stock yard where beef would be shipped to ? Chicago ?.

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Looking north at the switch to the spur. A city park and tennis court is on the left / west.
And I don't have a picture of the missing rail spur to the farm feed mill in the distance. I think its sad that the tracks to 3 feed mills on this line don't have rail access anymore. Doesn't anyone ship single carloads of grain anymore? I suppose semi-trucks have the 'direct route' business.

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Below is the construction site of the new PCA building in the Industrial Park on the east side of Marshfield.

I don't know if this will mean the end of the old facility; Colby ran out space to expand.
Marshfield will have much more square footage.

I heard from good freinds on the internet that a rail spur was planned for the new plant,
and in May 2019 I have one picture of that construction.

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This page was filmed in July and wrote in September, 2018