Eastern Railroad Discussion > FOXY in Wausau, Wisconsin (1)

  The Fox Valley & Lake Superior (FOXY) began operations earlier this year on several lower traffic CN lines in Wisconsin.  They were all ex-Wisconsin Central lines.  Prior to WC, they were of C&NW, Milwaukee Road, Soo Line, and Green Bay and Western ownership. 

  The lines around Wausau are ex-Milwaukee Road and Chicago & North Western.  Locomotives are ex-Wisconsin and Southern SD40-2s and GP38-2s that appear to be acquired from the GATX fleet.

  The SD40-2s are on the nightly train that makes a Bradley (WI) turn.  The GPs are working the 3M plant in Wausau.  This plant manufactures granules used for making roofing shingles.  It's a product ideally suited to rail transport. 

  More pictures in part 2. 

 

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After working 3M, the job drags their cars back to the main yard in town.  CN has a daily job from Wisconsin Rapids which delivers and pulls.  

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A casual observation, but it appears that FOXY has increased carloads since start up. 

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Interesting stuff !

Nice update and photos!

JG

DSPR3 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>   The Fox Valley & Lake Superior (FOXY) began
> operations earlier this year
>
>   The SD40-2s are on the nightly train that makes
> a Bradley (WI) turn.  The GPs are working the 3M
> plant in Wausau.  This plant manufactures
> granules used for making roofing shingles.  It's
> a product ideally suited to rail transport. 
>
>   More pictures in part 2. 
>
>  
Are there other such plants in Wisconsin? The Owen's Corning shingle plant in Brookville, IN for many years would get about 15-20 cars per week of these granules and they came from Wisconsin. In fact, many of the loads, but not all, arrived in Wisconsin Central 2 bay hoppers. The original Indiana & Ohio line served the Indiana plant but a washout about 10 years ago ended service on the northern most 20 miles of that line. The word is that they still buy the hopper loads of granules but they are trans loaded into trucks for the last hour of their journey to Brookville.

Posted from Android

P Wrote:

> Are there other such plants in Wisconsin? The
> Owen's Corning shingle plant in Brookville, IN for
> many years would get about 15-20 cars per week of
> these granules and they came from Wisconsin. In
> fact, many of the loads, but not all, arrived in
> Wisconsin Central 2 bay hoppers. The original
> Indiana & Ohio line served the Indiana plant but a
> washout about 10 years ago ended service on the
> northern most 20 miles of that line. The word is
> that they still buy the hopper loads of granules
> but they are trans loaded into trucks for the last
> hour of their journey to Brookville.
>
> Posted from Android

There is another plant in Northeastern Wisconsin, near Pembine. 

Specialty Granules LLC

 

Nice shots!!

P Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> DSPR3 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >   The Fox Valley & Lake Superior (FOXY) began
> > operations earlier this year
> >
> >   The SD40-2s are on the nightly train that
> makes
> > a Bradley (WI) turn.  The GPs are working the
> 3M
> > plant in Wausau.  This plant manufactures
> > granules used for making roofing shingles. 
> It's
> > a product ideally suited to rail transport. 
> >
> >   More pictures in part 2. 
> >
> >  
> Are there other such plants in Wisconsin? The
> Owen's Corning shingle plant in Brookville, IN for
> many years would get about 15-20 cars per week of
> these granules and they came from Wisconsin. In
> fact, many of the loads, but not all, arrived in
> Wisconsin Central 2 bay hoppers. The original
> Indiana & Ohio line served the Indiana plant but a
> washout about 10 years ago ended service on the
> northern most 20 miles of that line. The word is
> that they still buy the hopper loads of granules
> but they are trans loaded into trucks for the last
> hour of their journey to Brookville.
>
> Posted from Android

I still see the WC two bay hoppers come through Fort Wayne on occaision, so I assume they are doing what they have for many years.  I rememeber back in the 90's when the former Nickel Plate handled that train from up Nort that often had WC SD45's for power and carried many of these cars along with kaolin clay empties.  Really enjoyed those trains. Somwhere in that timeframe, NS derailed several of those roofing granual hoppers at South Whitley Indiana. I remember going down there and picking up handfuls of brown granuals off the ground.