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From: cb@hlwpc.UUCP (Carl Blesch)
Newsgroups: net.railroad
Subject: Re: CNW Left Handed Running
Message-ID: <674@hlwpc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Feb-86 14:26:26 EST
Article-I.D.: hlwpc.674
Posted: Wed Feb 12 14:26:26 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Feb-86 01:26:16 EST
References: <673@hlwpc.UUCP> <16900022@uiucuxc>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Short Hills, NJ
Lines: 21

> First, I don't think the entire Chicago-Minneapolis line was double track.
> I'd have to check some of my old employee timetables to be sure, but I
> recall reading about the tight schedule the "400" passenger trains had
> to keep in order to make meets along the way.

Maybe not the whole line, but I believe most of it was.  At least to
Wyeville.  I know that the line from Chicago to Milwaukee was double
(I rode on it a number of times), as was the line north of Milwaukee
(thru the northern suburbs to the Wiscona interchange, where
the two lines to Green Bay and the line to Minneapolis diverged).
Also, at various points along the line, you can see evidence of
once-double-track.  For example, if you take U.S. Highway 51 north of
Madison to Stevens Point, you go under the North Western line and can
see bridge supports that were wide enough to accommodate two parallel
spans.  Now there's only one span (even that may have been reconstructed,
since I believe they are widening highway 51 into a freeway  I haven't
traveled that highway since I moved to New Jersey two years ago).
Likewise, cross the tracks on Wisconsin Hwy. 13 at Adams,
and you can tell from the roadbed that the tracks were once double.

Carl Blesch