An Alternate Possibility Speculations on What Might Have Been Marshfield, Wisconsin | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Marshfield Cutoff - Originally posted September 16, 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Don't know how good your memories are, but when I wrote that useless blather on the Greenwood Line and posted it on here, I made mention of speculative plans made by the Soo/WC around the turn of the last century of plans made in advance of yard and engine facilities to be put in Marshfield had the Marshfield cut-off between Marshfield and Bateman been built. Let us speculate a little farther and examine this with our imaginations and knowledge of how the Soo Line actually operated. I'll put my own weird thoughts on here of what I think *might* have happened, and anyone can blow them to smithereens if you so wish. I've made mention on here of a Soo Line track map accurate to 1923 of a 7-track yard, wye and 11-track roundhouse (or, was it an 11-track yard and 7 track roundhouse??) planned on this map but poorly blanked out. None of it came to pass. It doesn't take much speculation to guess that the Soo would have moved the Division Headquarters to Marshfield, most likely after completion of the Marshfield cut-off. That would most likely include the Stevens Point Car Shops, which landowners in the vacinity of this planned expansion were ready to "donate" land to the Railroad for this specific purpose. A Roundhouse here would have become quite large----I'd bet an almost perfect circle-sized building---for reasons I will touch on as I go. I can't see the planned yard on the map as being adequate, and it is drawn in on the NORTH side of the former passing siding. It goes without saying that the WC/Soo would have been obliged to construct more tracks on the south side of the main line----rendering a situation very similiar to Stevens Points' ' A ' and ' B ' Yards. Traffic to the Twin Cities and beyond would have used the South Yard, and traffic to Ashland and Superior would have used the north yard. Oddly, both yards would have been on curves. As planned, the north yard began it's ladder three blocks west of Marshfield's main thoroughfare, and the tracks followed the curve of the main and siding to the northwest, coming back together about 60-to-70 cars later. Going by what was planned, the tracks in the north yard appear to hold 60-to-70 cars on some tracks. My best guess is the track capacities would have been something like this:
A yard on the south would have laddered off at about the same spot as the north yard ladder, and, it, too, would have followed the curve of the Marshfield cut-off as it turned due west; my best guess would have it larger than the north yard for track capacity. Let us not forget that EVERYTHING would have come to Marshfield. Not like what too place where the small 5-track yard that came to be, acted as a safety valve for Stevens Point. As it was, certain traffic in Soo times never saw Stevens Point's yard at all. I'm sure that would have changed had things been much different. I would venture a guess given relative familiarity of Soo operations that your passenger traffic would have all met here. 1, 2, 17, 18, 117, 118, 5 and 6 would have been split and built at Marshfield versus the operations we came to know. All of the freights would have put in here and been worked extensively. You would have had two yard engines working side-by-side just like in Stevens Point. The net results: The Second Sub would have been 33 miles longer. The 3rd sub would have become Marshfield-Withrow; doubtless that there would have been no 4th sub as we knew it. Most likely, the 4th sub would have become what we knew as the 5th sub (the Superior Line), the 6th (the Ashland Line) would have become the 5th, and so on. Eventually, the 13th sub (ex-DSS&A) wouldn't have existed. In later steam, Chippewa Falls, Exeland, and Park Falls would have ceased to be crew change points. Crews would have worked through to Superior, Shoreham and Ashland. It would have been a stretch. Soo/WC would have only had to change crews going across Wisconsin TWICE----Marshfield and at North Fond du Lac. This would have made Soo quite competitive with CB&Q, which only changed crews twice (Savanna and North La Crosse) between Chicago and St. Paul, and bested both Milwaukee Road and C&NW, both of whom changed crews three times crossing Wisconsin (Milwaukee: La Crosse, Portage, Milwaukee; C&NW: Altoona, Adams and Butler (Milwaukee)). My own best guess is this was why Northern Pacific, the instigator behind the Marshfield cut-off in the first place, had pushed WC so hard to build it in the first place. Way Freghts: The Nekoosa Line would have stayed the same but without the back-up moves, but just how Soo would have serviced Stevens Point and everything from Marshfield to Dale remains a mystery to me. Going north, I'm certain Soo would have operated a Marshfield-Medford local, possibly all the way to Prentice every day. A Marshfield-Ladysmith local was also a possibility. Westwards on the Marshfield Cut-off, I can see a Marshfield-CF Yard local every day, the Eau Claire line operations wouldn't have changed from what actually took place, and I'd bet there still would have been a CF-Shoreham local to handle the local customers. The "old Main" west of Owen: I really don't know what the Soo would have done with this, or how they would have serviced it. It would have been stubbed in much the same manner as the old main between Owen and Abbostford, but from which direction? West of Withee? Between Boyd and Bateman?Political ramifications: For one, Marshfield would have been a real bottleneck for Vehicular traffic, as nothing the Soo operated would have been moving very fast. If folks thought the C&NW operations were slow, no one would have seen anything had the Soo/WC followed through building the Marshfield cut-off. Trains leaving, performing air tests and entering the yard to tie up, do not move at warp speeds. Since the yard ladders would have only been three blocks off Marshfield's main street, I can see one large bottleneck for vehicular traffic. I can't guess what ramifications that would have had in street planning later on. Perhaps a better solution than what was built in 2000 would have come along instead of what was built. Too, Marshfield may not have become so anti-railroad, but who knows what the attitude towards the company would have been in Stevens Point had all the employment gone to Marshfield instead. Marshfield had pushed hard for the building of the cut-off. Those early politians weren't that stupid; they could see what that would have meant to the community. When it didn't come to pass, the City simply turned their back on Railroads and tolerated them (not very well) so long as they had business in Marshfield. What effect having full car and engine facilities and a Division Point in Marshfield would have done to community development, particularily in industrial development, I really can't say. Perhaps Marshfield's community leaders wouldn't have been so suspicous of outside companies locating there. Then again, maybe things wouldn't have changed in that respect. Hard to tell. The Marshfield Cut-off would have hurt Spencer and Owen. Both grew because of the operations there on the Railroad, but had the cut-off been built, the operations would have disappeared and neither community would have seen the growth they did before 1960. In other words, a place like Owen would have dried up 80 years sooner than it did. Spencer would still have it's ties to being a bedroom community as it does today. Well, that's enough blathering on what never was. Keith
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The content of this page was created by Keith Meacham, and he retains the copyright.