Yes. It was abandoned in 1980. I have walked and biked that trail several times. You can still see some of the ties and other small things that were along the line. I even spotted a signal stand near Caryville for a few years ago but it has been gone when I was there last fall. But if you bike near Meridian you might find a call box in the woods. In Durand, the depot used to stand, but was tore down in 2012 by the city of Durand after great efforts were to preserve the depot. There is a small section that goes from Durand about 5 miles down that is still intact and there are several ghost towns along the way. It is a speeder car club and runs in May and October only. I rode it in 2011 and it was a great learning experience about the railroad and the wildlife in the Tiffany bottoms. The line is still intact all the way to Trevino on the BNSF line but was flooded out in 2007 by the Chippewa River and there are currently no plans to rebuild this section of track. But the MILW only used the Eau Claire to Durand section in the 60's and 70's. The bridge at Trevino for the MILW is long gone as it was tore up in about 1965 or so. There was proposal by NSP (Northern States Power) to build a nuclear power plant in Durand which could have returned the section between Trevino and Durand a freight route again but was turned over so the possibility of freight service returning to the intact section. Unless a major company that comes to Durand and requires freight service, there is no possibility of freight service returning to the area.
The Chippewa Valley Motor Car Club has a lease on part of that line.
http://www.chippewavalleymotorcarassociation.ellawisc.com/
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
This was a Milwaukee Road line as mentioned before. At one time the Milwaukee did cross the Mississippi to Wabasha Minnesota but I believe that in the mid 1960's the Milwaukee Road abandoned the bridge and used Burlington and later BN trackage rights to reach home rails in La Crosse.
The Milwaukee 'CV' trains originated in Winona, and used the CB&Q/GB&W bridge to get across the Mississippi River, then ran up the CB&Q to Trevino where they gained home rails again.
Thank you for the correction. I once rode the Afternoon Hiawatha on Good Friday in April of 1969 which detoured on the CB&Q from St Croix Tower to LaCrosse and made its station stops for Red Wing and Winona on the Wisconsin side of the river. The Red Wing stop was made where CB&Q had no station near where US 63 crossed the CB&Q tracks on an overpass. The Winona stop was made at Winona Junction Wisconsin and did not cross back into Winona Minnesota but instead continued to LaCrosse where it left the CB&Q and backed into the Milwaukee Road station in LaCrosse.
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