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Nostalgia & History > Meet Monday: SOO Line Auburndale WI 8/9/85

On the SOO main line west of the division point at Stevens Point WI, here's a 3-slide sequence of what appears to a timetable-scheduled (no class lights) westbound, behind SD40-2's 757-761, heading into the siding at Auburndale to meet an eastbound extra behind GP38-2's 4423-441?.  Photographer Charles B. Porter captured the action on Aug. 9, 1985.

While this meet may have been a routine event, changes occurring at the corporate level were anything but routine for the normally staid SOO.  In February of the same year, SOO had acquired the remnants of the Milwaukee Road and was in the process of shifting most through traffic to those lines.

In Feb. 1986, SOO established the Lakes States Transportation Division to operate secondary (most of the original SOO) trackage, including that pictured here.  In 1987 Lake States was sold to the "new" Wisconsin Central which commenced operations in October of that year.

Finally, on Oct. 9, 2001, CN acquired the WC, and the line between Superior WI and Chicago has become a very important component in current CN operations.  At the end of WC ownership, Auburndale was seeing more trains than it ever did under the SOO; does anyone have a current CN daily count?     

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