beaulieu wrote:The growth of the Wisconsin Central and the BN haulage agreement with CN doomed the northend of the C&NW. The loss of the overhead traffic destroyed the economics of the rest of the traffic. Without the overhead traffic the local traffic did not justify through manifests. For C&NW it became cheaper to move the traffic via the Twin Cities, by combining traffic heading south with that heading to Chicago you could generate a complete train. One through manifest could not generate enough money to pay for the upkeep of the whole line from Eau Claire to Superior. When the WC bought the line from the C&NW, they kept the northern portion of the C&NW from Gordon north. South of Gordon there were several bridges in poor condition.The only source of traffic north of Cameron was the paper mill at Hayward which is on a short branch, a portion of the old Omaha mainline to Ashland, plus some sidings that loaded pulpwood, until you get to Superior.
You hit the nail on the head. The only way to support the line from Itasca toward Spooner and south was potash and lumber from Western Canada to connections in Chicago and forwarding to customers in to the East in Official Territory. Once the CN had their own route to Chicago the Northwestern's line was redundant. The Northwestern made a strategic error in not having the haulage trains move over their railroad rather than the BN.
I was the Market Manager-Chemicals and Fertilizer for the Northwestern from 1970 to 1982.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.