Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

This line was a double track CNW main , with wayside CTC signals , heavy jointed rail.
Top speed was achieved by a train engineer East of Evansville; a Dakota 400 E8 w small freight reached 117 mp h .
Back when they tore the doubletrack out, they compromised the roadbed so that today, the main line leans to one side.
Speed to evansville is 10 mph, and 4 axles only.
A derailment in 2008 at the landmark COOP track loop, along the rotten , sagging main ,prompted some new ties and ballast. This fixed the " leaning train".
UP seems to insist on keeping the line, but doesn't use it ; right now there are miles of covered hoppers stored from Downtown Evansville , Evansville Jct, (the old Beloit line leg of the wye ) old sections of the Doubletrack , to the far end of the UP harvard sub, just south of Brooklyn. There are also some a the Leyden siding , halfway to janesville. WSOR needs to take over the rest of this disaster line ...
Brooklyn is still overgrown with no signs of progress.
Netherwood has 12" LED lights, and new jet black targets. (the targets all along this line were brush painted with gold paint, and very faded)
It also has two griswold mechanical bells.
A second griswold bell was added in the upgrade.
There is also a new gated crossing in Oregon with 4 tracks, right where the trains back into lycon.
Perry Parkway is a different story...
Its protected by one safetran cantilever, and a cross buck.
The second cantilever from there is Laying in the words near netherwood road , as its been for almost 10 years. The line/ signal at perry parkway is still in disrepair .
When I looked down the line , the track leading towards the downtown Oregon bridge was NOT looking quite right.
Very odd , how this CNW main approaches the bridge at a wrong angle, to cross it requiring a sharp curve . Its like the bridge is clocked a little over like a turntable and kinked the track.
Additionally, the grade in this bridge approach was highly excessive , like a pathetic grade that is impassible .
Im really interested in the bizarre trackwork there, nothing like that would fly on the CNW.

You're right, those are Griswold bells. Forgot to check my notes before posting in the other thread.

I was very surprised that Braun Road (the plant crossing you spoke of) got mechanical bells on a new signal install.

On my vacation next month I'll have to drive up and see for myself how they're doing on Plymouth/Sheboygan. Based on the photos I'm seeing from other railfans who live closer, there has been a lot of progress.

It seems they have dumped ballast all the way to perry parkway ...
which means the bridge was somehow crossed .


that bridge is FAKE !!! Im confused at this development

Today... Is a very special day .

Im watching a MASSIVE , 200+ car WSOR storage train plow through Perry parkway, out to Brooklyn .
There are already cars visible from downtown Brooklyn .
This is the first train over this segment since 1996 .
These are covered cement hoppers , in fact there are 2 UP engines at the end.
Same cars as the Evansville ones .
Now, there must be 400 or more cement hoppers stored on this line...

Correction : the cars where silica sand hoppers . Hundreds of them .
They start about 1/4 mile north of downtown Brooklyn. And they go to Oregon. Old sections of the double track are packed with them .
About 30 to 40 have to be moved and shoved onto a wye in order for the UP local to serve a lumber yard in Evansville.
When the centerbeam flat is delivered, they drag the cars back to storage.
They unload the centerbeam in a couple days, and then they gotta do the whole giant shove again. Usually at night.
The grain trains and lycon cement trains use this line; which is normally clear for faster through trains.
This is not CTC anymore , but ATS and CTC starts in Janesville
a quick update on the revived CNW line
Irish lane , Mcoy rd, and others now have strange new signals, the Irish ln one having an extra set of LED lights above the cross bucks.
All signals are completely new from Netherwood rd to madison ...
There are new relay cases, and wsor signs and mileposts too .
Bridge repairs are happening on the UP/Janesville side .
THE SAME SILICA SAND CARSE ARE BEING STORED IN EVANSVILLE AND LEYDEN BY UP, WITH MILES AND MILES OF THEM . WHY?

It seems WSOR may have beefed up the track on their side of the line , with continuous weld rail in Oregon and Fitchburg .

Neat you saw that storage car move.

Track in Fitchburg is still jointed, but sometime between April 20 and May 22 they raised speed to 25 MPH from yard limit Oregon (I suspect) to Cheryl Parkway.

Amazing.
Line now fully active from Madison to Oregon .
Evansville is becoming quite a busy UP terminus.
A new pedestrian gate and dwarf signal have been installed in Evansville.
Brooklyn is now being bulldozed & cleared , and the line is looking more and more like the mainline it once was.