BaltACDThe railroads really should revoke the easments that have been granted for road crossings.
I agree they should be based on conditions of incremental improvement or eventual abandonment. I grew up in Waukesha county and if I had to guess this was a Department of Natural Resources (DNR action) with full involvement of the County Board. I only say that because it is in a township and a township would not care about a gravel road all that much or access to a forest / hunting area.
Throughout the resort lakes area they have some pretty crappy RR Crossings because of developers putting them in without any real engineering or care for what happens to the traveling public. A good portion used to be old wagon trails to resorts and the roads are pretty narrow and can't handle two cars side by side in some cases. One car has to pull off on the grass or gravel for the other to pass.
CMStP&P has an old travel poster of the Wisconsin Lakes Region I have a copy in my house it's three by three feet and shows the lake region around the Milwaukee Road mainline with the small hotels and proprieters names and addresses around the region........pretty cool. The railroad used it to generate passenger traffic to this area from Milwaukee and Chicago.
State Highway 83 which connects Mukwanago to the rest of the Kettle Moraine Lakes region is an old wagon trail and appears as a Wagon Trail on the CMStP&P poster.
The other cool thing about Waukesha County is after the Pestigo Forest Fire, Wisconsin got paranoid and started erecting lookout towers throughout the forested areas that were close in to civilization such as Waukesha County.
Waukesha County had about a handful built out of timber on the peaks of hills. Last one I know of was South of Nashotah on Highway C called Lapham Peak, when I was a kid it was open to the public and you could climb several flights of stairs and see a large chunk of Waukesha County from the top of the tower. They were used to spot smoke from potential forest fires then fell out of disuse. Awesome place to go in the fall to view fall colors.
Trains Magazine Columnist / Writer Ed King (former CPRR dispatcher in Milwaukee) lived near my family and I rode the School Bus into school with his daughter who was one grade behind me.
BTW, Mr Nystrom of Nystrom truck fame is buried in the Hartland Cemetary close to the Milwaukee Road tracks........also part of the lakes resort area.
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