BaltACD What does the track use contract between Amtrak, WisDot, CP and WSOR specify about who can use the tracks? If the contract says CP & WSOR can use the tracks - They Will!
What does the track use contract between Amtrak, WisDot, CP and WSOR specify about who can use the tracks?
If the contract says CP & WSOR can use the tracks - They Will!
I am not sure on that, the Original 1965 Passenger Depot West of the Post Office, I found out surprisingly was built with WisDOT funds. It combined the Milwaukee Road and C&NW passenger station so they could level the former Milwaukee Road Station and rip up the approach tracks so they could put in the I-94 freeway to downtown.
WSOR is operating on trackage rights that I suspect date from the Milwaukee Road era with the sale of former Milwaukee Road trackage to them from North Milwaukee to Horicon. Whenever private cars come to town, Amtrak contracts with CP to switch the Amtrak train and there is usually a CP GP unit idling away waiting for the train to switch the cars.
The practice of running through the depot dates from the Milwaukee Road era though they used to do it but not as much and only with a few trains. CP seems to be doing it with every train now with the shutdown or avoidance of Muskego Yard..........which to me suggests they intend to abandon the yard and cutoff trackage at some point (which would be a shame as that would be a loss of a potential freight train staging area).
BTW, if they are going to run the trains through the passenger depot. Why not just pay the cost to extend the CTC to cover the approx 3-4 mile gap? It seems kind of silly to leave a gap like that. Yet they left the gap since 1965.
They have the lower close to roadbed signal lights under the trainshed (USPS building) for all 5 tracks but I have no clue who controls them and I have never seen them shift from red to green so I suspect they used to be controlled by the station or within the station??? How did that work or integrate with the CTC system?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThjV1WCt2Y4
The large building over the tracks is the Post Office built when RPO's were still running. It is going to be vacated by the USPS and I think in 2018 redeveloped into retail or mall space. To the West of the USPS is the Amtrak station. I believe the signal masts right before the crossing in the video mark the start of CTC for the former Milwaukee Road C&M Sub. I think CTC cuts out at cutoff tower (the switch out to Milwaukee's largely vacant Muskego Yard), a few miles to the West of the Amtrak station but I am not 100% sure.
Amtrak and WisDOT do not like CP and WSOR running freights over this route instead of using the Muskego Yard bypass. I am curious what the solution is going to end up being between CP and the Passenger side. The concern on WisDot and Amtraks point of view is the heavy frieghts are unnecessarily wearing down the newly refurbished passenger train station infrastructure as well as wearing out the bridge crossing the river just behind the video taker in this video.
Another one this time with 100 new grain cars passing the Amtrak Milwaukee Mitchell field airport station. The overpass is the freeway spur to the airport.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3LZvLExODM
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