Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

I've been documenting the current state of the line as it looks after being out of service for 17 years, before any rehab work begins.

At the end of August, WSOR started to clear out the centerbeam flatcars that had been stored on the line from north of the Beltline all the way to McCoy Road since at least 2009. When these first pictures were taken on August 27th, the northernmost cut had been removed, but there were still cars above the Highway 14 bridge.











As of 9/14/13, the cars above the bridge were gone, but there was still a cut of about 20-25 at the south end including the ones right at McCoy Road as seen in the first two pictures from the previous group.

The McCoy Road crossing hasn't changed much since 2006. Maybe the signals are leaning a little bit more and the backgrounds and visors are a little more faded, but that's about it:

http://www.rxrsignals.net/Wisconsin/A-K ... urg/McCoy/

Looking south from Lacy Road. Sometime within the last two years, the grade crossing was removed from the road.





Looking north from Lacy Road.



Here's how it looked in 2006-07, with one signal still standing. The other (closer to the Syene Road intersection) was knocked over by a vehicle around 2003

http://www.rxrsignals.net/Wisconsin/A-K/Fitchburg/Lacy/

Looking south from Cheryl Parkway, and a junk tire in between the rails right where they end south of the road:





Looking north across Cheryl Parkway. This is a new extension of this road, which did not exist when this line was last active. Therefore, a new grade crossing will have to be created here. The tracks continue north on the other side of the road, somewhere in the tall weeds to the right of the dirt mound:



Looking south from Cheryl again, one rail is barely visible:



Irish Lane crossing, which I last visited in 2006:















Other than the neglected signals showing their deterioration even more, again not much has changed here.

Here's how it looked 7 years ago:

http://www.rxrsignals.net/Wisconsin/A-K ... urg/Irish/

According to the railroad's 30th Anniversary book "The WSOR Story," the last train on this line ran October 18, 1996 as UP LPS-20 with conductor Hall and engineer Davis, MP15s 1310/1303 (both unpatched CNW at the time!), and 14 empties.

The tracks have been disused for so long, the rails look like they caught fire.

It will be interesting to see this line back in action, but let's hope that there aren't any complaints about the horns that they get an AHS!

There probably will be (complaints), but if they are made a quiet zone, here in Wisconsin we typically use a straight up quiet zone with no AHS. Only auditory warning would be crossing bell and train bell.

A long overdue update. The Madison to Oregon segment is BACK! First train since October of 1996 operated on September 29, 2014. Unfortunately, the C&NW-era crossing signals at McCoy Road, Irish Lane and Netherwood Road will not be re-used. The lights have been bagged and extra crossbucks with Yield signs erected until modern, L.E.D. gate signals can be installed next year. The lone signal at Lacy Road was already gone. I've already chased three trains on the line, including the inaugural one.





















The train is crossing Lacy Road in this picture:















This is the view north from McCoy Road:



















View north from Netherwood Road. Trains wouldn't normally cross there unless they needed more headroom than usual while switching, but the crew of the ballast train did take WAMX 3928 light engine all the way down to the red board in downtown Oregon that day.

Wow, that's a really great update to hear

However, I wonder if the signals were just in a bad enough condition to where they couldn't be reused.. I would at least think they could temporarily use those signals before upgrading them instead of just placing in crossbucks and bagging the lights

ZachL wrote:Wow, that's a really great update to hear

However, I wonder if the signals were just in a bad enough condition to where they couldn't be reused.. I would at least think they could temporarily use those signals before upgrading them instead of just placing in crossbucks and bagging the lights

Not the railroad's call. It was the ruling of the office of "Da Commish".
http://ocr.wi.gov/apps40/dockets/conten ... %20Company

That is a pretty detailed explanation of each crossing's situation and the reasons behind the warning devices. I wonder if all states do that, or is Wisconsin unique in having a Commissioner of Railroads officer that makes these determinations and makes the information publicly available online?

The "Commish" himself, Jeff Plale, was one of the speakers at the "Ribbon-cutting" ceremony that opened the line (1:03):

Pretty awesome... I'm sure you will update us again as they start making those improvements to the crossings.