The Chicago & North Western Wall of Memories

[Lord Atmo]

the most famous railroad in Wisconsin, yes even more famous than the Wisconsin Central, is and has been a memory for over a decade now. discuss it and help keep it a preserved memory here

[fuzzybroken]

Well, good thing for those of us who are C&NW fans, there are still a number of CNW cabooses out there. Most of them are getting to be in pretty bad shape, but still retain some form of CNW paint! The only exception I've found was one in Janesville that looked like it had received a very bad UP paint job. No gloss, no logo, just paint and a reporting mark... [V]

[nanaimo73]

What were the official names for the green and yellow paint ?
I heard it was "English Stagecoach" for the yellow.

[gacuster]

The old CNW brick depot is still standing in Green Bay, WI and being used as a restaurant/brewpub called Titletown Brewing. Very interesting old (1900) building and during the summer you can dine on the platform. CN main line runs by the depot and is pretty busy so you may get lucky and see a freight to go with your beer.

[Lord Atmo]

i heard "canary yellow". not positive though what it is. Zito honestly doesnt look too bad. i like the look of it on the HO scale CNW locomotives.

yeah. in addition to cabooses, there's plenty of other CNW rolling stock out there. the yellow cylindrical hoppers with the ball and bar on them. that's always nice to see. plenty of CNW. shame there arent any classics of CNW left like steam locomotives or carbody diesels. are there any passenger cars still around that are displayed or used in excursion trains? i'd SO ride in one of those any day

DUDE, I WAS AT THAT RESTAURANT! that was FUN! the trains shooting by like that. i heard from someone in the GB railroad museum that it's every hour. is it more random or frequent now? i heard this when the trak was still good ol' Wisconsin Central.

it's great to see so much CNW stuff left over that will never become memories.

[zardoz]

And if I can help anyone with questions about the Wisconsin Division (Proviso to Madison, Proviso to Adams, Proviso to Fond du Lac), or the suburban operations, just let me know.

[fuzzybroken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by gacuster

CN main line runs by the depot and is pretty busy so you may get lucky and see a freight to go with your beer.

Oh! That sounds like a little slice of heaven! [:D]

[fuzzybroken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Lord Atmo

Zito honestly doesnt look too bad. i like the look of it on the HO scale CNW locomotives.

That would make you one of the few! [xx(]

[chicagorails]

i remember cnw 1955, nelson and sterling,and dixon illinois. gramps worked 46 years west chicago to clinton iowa, the busiest of the whole main line. remember the 18 stall round house and the 3 story hotel slash resturant at south yard. both towers, and the landmark coal tower still there.
nelson will be known as global 3 and a half when the edelstein connection is opened this fall,oct for stackers hey hey.
nelson has more freights than any other place on the sytem of old cnw. and that will grow by 6 to 12 a day after oct.
the railside resturant in nelson has the best fi***his old boy has ever ate. there are cnw ho passenger trains inside that run around the place.
nelson is between dixon and sterling ill. and at north side of tracks youall can watch photograph 50 to 70 trains in 24 hrs.

[fuzzybroken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Lord Atmo

shame there arent any classics of CNW left like steam locomotives or carbody diesels. are there any passenger cars still around that are displayed or used in excursion trains? i'd SO ride in one of those any day

What about CNW #1385? Or the soon-to-be CNW 411? IRM's got some bilevel cars too...

[chicagorails]

cnw 5522 will be out n about july 15, ya hoo!! praise the lord

[gradyo54]

I think there is an overpass on I72 just west of Springfield Il. that has a CNW sign on it, I think it says "Employee Owned Chichago North Western" on it. My Illinois Gazetter looks like "Gateway Western "has that line now. Does anyone else know about this?

[gacuster]

Lord Atmo: I don't live in Green Bay so can't really vouch for the frequency of trains going past the depot, but it did seem busier in Wisconsin Central days. Once I saw a unit coal train with UP power heading south empty, no doubt after delivering the black stuff to the power plant at the mouth of the Fox River. A siding next to the platform is used to store private cars, for a time there was a green and yellow observation car named "Flambeau" parked there. I always thought the CNW colors matched the green and gold of the Green Bay Packers quite well.

[fuzzybroken]

Yeah, I remember the first CNW locomotive I owned, or maybe even painted. Somebody said, "Ooo, look, a Packer train!" I don't think it was all that coincidental that what was once the biggest railroad in Wisconsin shared a color scheme with Wisconsin's team!

Say, who had blue and orange? (i.e. Bears colors)...

[Lord Atmo]

CSXT has blue and yellow. kinda close. yeah i really want to go to that restaurant again. i dont drink beer obviousely. i'm 18 only. but the fanning. quite nice

[gacuster]

Even if you can't drink, get a "ringside" seat in the bay window or on the platform and enjoy the food and the view.

[cr6479]

Hey Lord Atmo. I had posted CONRAIL THREAD FOR EVERYBODY, but i going to take down this week or next week.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cr6479

Hey Lord Atmo. I had posted CONRAIL THREAD FOR EVERYBODY, but i going to take down this week or next week.

Can you take down a thread???

[cr6479]

chinatown782411. If you don't answer it then it becomes a dead thread.

[CNW 6000]

Merging all the CNW threads into this one...what's one more merger? LOL.

[Lord Atmo]

bergie might do that if he feels it's necessary. if anyone sees one of the CNW GP7s around, take a picture and post it. see how many we can find

[nordique72]

Okay- I do agree this is much nicer here.

"I heard "canary yellow". not positive though what it is. Zito honestly doesnt look too bad. i like the look of it on the HO scale CNW locomotives."

Both "canary yellow" and "Zito yellow" were nicknames for the CNW's 1981 "Sunburst yellow" or "Safety yellow"- both show up as official names for the light yellow. The original yellow was "Stagecoach" yellow as noted before- but when CNW went back to the darker shade in 1992 you couldn't get that shade anymore (since lead based paints were now illegal), so the new color was offhandedly referred to as "New Old Yellow"
I'm not aware of any special name for the green paint used on the units- as several shades of dark green were used on CNW units over the years.

The CNW I-72 overpass southwest of Springfield is the now abandoned South Pekin Sub- the very same that ran behind my house further south in Edwardsville as a kid. The UP abandoned the line from Barr to Girard and rerouted the only trains on this line via the I&M Barr to Springfield, then south to STL on the old GM&O by 1998-99. The line south of Girard is still in to Monterrey Mine (north of Gillespie) for occasional UP coal movements. The GWWR did also have a line in that vicinity- the old GM&O Springfield-Roodhouse, which the CNW vaulted over just south of the interstate bridge.

[Lord Atmo]

nordique, might i ask where you live and how you knew about the 400 club? regarding your post in the 8575 funeral topic. i know when the roadrailer comes through altoona and i'm usually there to see it. it comes any time between 8:00 and 10:00 PM. but it's just trailers on train wheels. i'm looking for mixed freights. that's 4 trains that come at any time. and i really wish i knew when they came without blowing $80.00 on a scanner. i dont have that kind of cash. i've seen the 400 club many times. there's no marquee there, just a neon light. nice, but it's just a drawing and sadly, not a real CNW locomotive. i go to altoona around 6:00 PM and stay till 9:30 PM. all i ever see is the roadrailer. the few times i go there in early morning (between 3:00 AM and 7:30 AM), i see 2 trains. sometimes the roadrailer comes back. but that's a grand total of 4 trains. that leaves 2. i need to know this crap...

i am heartsick for CNW, but i'm heartsick for their hood units, not their carbody units. much less drawings of them. i'm planning on going all over the USA to find these 20+ CNW locomotives scattered around it. should be really fun.

again, nordique, this is all in response to the recent post you made in the 8575 funeral topic. i just dont want to revive that thread.

[Lord Atmo]

aaaaand we're back! and 3 days till the heritage unit arrives. CNW is still sadly missed

[gacuster]

One of the more interesting sights I saw on the old CNW line through Manitowoc happened one winter after a heavy snowfall.  My house is only about two blocks from the north/south main line between Green Bay and Milwaukee and when I heard an air horn I looked out a window and saw five SD 40-2's pushing a bright yellow wedge plow southbound.  They were moving along at about 35 mph clearing the snow without any difficulty.

[Anonymous]

I remember that the CNW painted a few locos in the same " yellow" as used on some fire trucks, it was called high impact yellow, allmost a lime color.

The joke was they were "Slime Lime and Green"

Toasty

[Lord Atmo]

AHHHHH I REMEMBER SEEING LOCOMOTIVES IN THAT YELLOW!

oh memories :*(

[Anonymous]

I saw some old CNW junk today.  A snow plow and caboose so rusty you couldn't read the numbers.  Spotted at Butler Yard, WI.  Also saw a CNW caboose at Yardcenter Dolton, IL number 11111.

[spe3376]

Where I work in Des Plaines, IL, I've got the Norma-Seeger connector track against the back of the property.  When I started there in 2000, there were still a number of full CNW SD40-2's with the autoracks to and from Belvedere.  Then they were patched.  Then full UP repaints (2999, 2997, and 2995 were the three that went by a couple of times a week).  Now, there are just the UP Dash 9's.  There is still a local that goes through with a CNW bay window caboose a few times a week.  Occasionally, there are some of the old CNW and MStL MOW flats in the Norma yard, just a short walk during my lunch.  I just wish I had my camera with me all that time...


stan

[ShopsYardMaster]

And if I can help anyone with questions about the Wisconsin Division (Proviso to Madison, Proviso to Adams, Proviso to Fond du Lac), or the suburban operations, just let me know.

And if anyone needs info on the FDL/NFDL area, I may be able to help.