Spring 2007 Issue

IN EVERY ISSUE

Soo News
WC News
Editor's Report
Executive Report
Gallery
Rip Track
Letters
Transfer Table
Less-Than-Carload

STAFF

Editor
Reid Van Sluys

Associate Editor
Ken Soroos

Associate Editor
Andy Roth

Associate Editor
Jason Korth

News Editor
Galen Fromm

Wiconsin Central News
Galen Fromm

Associate Editor/Modeling
Chuck Derus

Contributing Editors
Doug Fleming

Production Consultant
Rick Johnson

Technical Consultants
Stuart J. Nelson, Dennis Storzek

Commercial Accounts
Joe Lallensack

Advertising Manager
Burnell Breaker

Back Issues
Roger Wurtzel

Editors Emeritus
Larry Easton & Rick Johnson

Spring 2007 Issue Hightlights

Wisconsin Central's Race Horses: The K-20 Atlantics

By Richard B. Moessner

Back in 1886, the Wisconsin Central Railroad had built its own rails southward from Menasha toward Milwaukee and Chicago. Lake Winnebago limited the choices for right-of-way; and the WC had to locate its line parallel to that of the Chicago and North Western for some thirty miles, from Menasha to Fond Du Lac. The lines were not only parallel, but were near enough to often times be in sight of each other. In direct competition, these two lines became known as “The Race Track.”

Gogebic Range Ore Trains

Iron Ore Shipped During the Wisconsin Central Limited Era

by Tom Tardiff

For those of you who thought the last shipments of iron ore from the Gogebic Iron Range had been made in 1966, think again. An operation has been going on, sporadically, for the past 14 years shipping small amounts of iron ore out by rail to varied customers in the Midwest.
The Gogebic Iron Range covers the west end of Upper Michigan and the adjacent portion of northern Wisconsin. The Gogebic Range, once one of the largest producers of iron ore in the world, shipped most of its ore out by rail through the Soo Line and Chicago & North Western ore docks at Ashland, WI. The Soo Line (previously Wisconsin Central Railway) operated one wooden and later a concrete ore dock, on Chequamegon Bay on Ashland’s waterfront.

South Shore Motorcar R-1

How a Fairmont Motorcar Stored In a Barn Got a New Lease On Life

by Jeremy Winkworth

Photos by Rudi Maki

In late1999 Ed Hermanson, a retired DSS&A and LS&I engineer living in Marquette, mentioned to me that he had recently been approached about buying a motor car that was stored in a barn. Apparently an ex-Soo Line employee had recently died, leaving behind several barns packed full of collectibles, including antique automobiles, tractors and a railroad motor car. I immediately expressed an interest in the motor car. I’ve always wanted a Soo Line motor car but missed my chance in the eighties when surplus motor cars were advertised for sale in the SOO. By the time the car could be viewed, winter had arrived.

They Called It... The Race Track

by Carson Wilder

At the beginning of the Twentieth Century a keen rivalry between the upstart Wisconsin Central and the much larger Chicago and North Western Railway developed and flourished in eastern Wisconsin in the years preceding the Great Depression. Nowhere else was this spirited rivalry more keenly displayed than along a thirty-mile stretch of nearly side-by-side tangent track known informally as “The Race Track.”
From the outskirts of Neenah to the village of North Fond du Lac, the WC and the C&NW ran parallel to each other, except for a short distance through the city of Oshkosh. Often times less than one hundred feet apart, these stretches of track provided the occasional opportunity for an intense, and strictly off-the-record, contest between the two rivals.

Wisconsin Central Atlantics Roster, 1902-1935

Sources: Larry Easton and Stu Nelson; History of he Wisconsin Central by Roy L. Martin (R&LHS Bulletin No. 54, Jan. 1941)

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