Where do you take visitors when they come to call? In our case, Canadian National’s Byron Hill

It is a universal truth that we Americans rarely visit the sights that are in our own backyards. It is also a universal truth that when company comes to visit, we eagerly and gladly take our friends and family to visit these attractions. So it was when Trains photo contributor Samuel Phillips and his friend Jonathan McCoy came to visit us last weekend here in Trains home turf in southeastern Wisconsin.

Byron Hill is the significant railroad geographical feature in the region. It’s long been known as an operational headache with a twisting .99 percent grade in the midst of an area better know for relatively straight, flat running. I first learned of it when it was the Soo Line in the late 1970s and early 1980s at a time when I traded slides with another fan, and thanks to that association in my collection are numerous excellent shots of red and white SD40-2s working their way up and down the hill. The railroad passed to the Wisconsin Central and later to the Canadian National, which operates it today as a busy mainline route between Chicago and Canada.

If it were closer to where I live, I’d probably frequent it more often, but as it is now, I am lucky to get there once or twice a year. But it is a good so, and when Samuel and Jonathan arrived Saturday, Associate Editor Steve Sweeney and I tossed them in my Ford Fusion and headed north toward Fond Du Lac. Between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. we were treated to three northbounds, two southbounds, and a light engine move on a sunny but cold and breezy day with the temperatures hovering about 20 degrees. We were able to catch some moves more than once.

We had good luck as the parade included CN cowl units, geeps, Illinois Central painted engines, mid-train distributed power units, and relatively new and clean General Electric units. The CN’s famously long trains created gorgeously long trains draped across the snowy pastoral scene that is dotted with farms, silos, and windmills. We even managed to photograph a northbound passing a trackside snowman, obviously the creation of a bored crew biding its time at a lonely crossing.

Samuel and Jonathan weren’t shy about diving into the snow, and I think they enjoyed Byron. By the end of the day, as clouds moved in, we declared it a good day as a southbound train faded into the darkness and headed off to dinner. I figure the next time visitors come, I’ll be back at Byron, but the experience we had Saturday tells me I shouldn’t wait for company to come calling.

If you’d like to learn more about Byron Hill, check out our Hot Spots location guides, available to subscribers as an extra benefit.