Amtrak to Green Bay Proposal

[mikeydc03]

Did Amtrak ever have plans to serve Green Bay? If my memory serves me right several gameday specials were run into Green Bay back in the day around the time of the creation of Amtrak. Was there ever a tentative schedule drawn up? Any Info would help.

I also somewhat remember the mentioning that Amtrak once had a fleet of gallery cars, but there was never a record of them being disposed of, so does Amtrak still posess them? Were these from the Rock Island?

[byte]

The gallery cars were ex-C&NW club cars. Basically the same outer frame as the commuter cars, with an inter-city seating arrangement. These were used up until around 1990 or so, and then disposed of/scrapped. I'm pretty sure some sat around rusting away at Beech Grove for a while, but have since been scrapped. Two of them somehow ended up under the ownership of Nashville's new Music City Star commuter rail line, who is using them as a parts source for their other cars.

[Mr.T]

I'm pretty sure in the late 1990's Governor Tommy Thompson wanted state funded Amtrak service for Milwaukee-Green Bay and Milwaukee-Madison. The Madison route got to the Environmental Impact Statement stage but no further AFAIK. I don't think anything was ever done with the Green Bay plans.

[drewh]

If Wisconsin wanted it and was willing to pay for it, Im sure it would have happened. I suppose they were not able to come up with the state share of the new start costs. Other states have successfully launched plenty of new services, so Im sure it was a question of Wisconsin funding.

[Jeff Smith]

Guess we'll dust this off....

https://fox6now.com/2019/06/29/amtrak-t ... milwaukee/

I was kind of surprised Amtrak didn't go to Green Bay.

MILWAUKEE — There’s a new way to travel back and forth from Green Bay to Milwaukee.

Amtrak along with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) announced a new bus service on Friday, June 28 will carry passengers between the two cities starting July 1.

According to WLUK, the bus route on I-41 will make two daily round trips between Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh, and Fond du Lac.
...

[mtuandrew]

There certainly was Thruway service from MKE to GBY and all the way north to the Upper Peninsula. This sounds like an additional bus daily, if not two.

[electricron]

It only took Wisconsin DOT 12 years to fund a bus to Green Bay. Meanwhile
Greyhound has been providing that bus service forever from Milwaukee, charging only an $18 fare.

Does Wisconsin really have to subside a bus service already being provided by private enterprise?

[Jeff Smith]

^

The new Amtrak bus route replaces gaps in transportation due to Greyhound’s service cancellation, WLUK reports.

[eolesen]

Wisconsin DOT posts a map annually showing what's active and what's railbanked.

https://wisconsindot.gov/Documents/trav ... ailmap.pdf

There's no easy route anymore between MKE and GRB. Given the CN's attitude towards trains, and considering that all three of the former CNW and MILW routes are severed, higher speed rail won't happen anytime soon, but it would be interesting to see one of those gaps get restored vs. detouring on the CN between Milwaukee and Fond Du Lac.

The Shoreline is salvageable, but bypasses where all the population growth is.

The Air Line is severed between West Bend and Fond Du Lac, about 22 miles of missing track that's been converted to a state trail. Not insurmountable to see that reinstated, but it wouldn't come cheap.

[eolesen]

There is private service... but apparently it's sub-optimal for people trying to connect to/from Amtrak.

Lamers has a connect bus (change in Appleton) daily plus weekend-only express service...

https://www.golamers.com/i/f/file/conne ... re2018.pdf

Indian Trails operates the previous Thruway bus via I-43 (bypassing the Fox Valley) which continues up to Marquette and Hancock in the U.P.

https://www.indiantrails.com/sites/defa ... ng2019.pdf

[CarterB]

The gallery cars were ex-C&NW club cars. Basically the same outer frame as the commuter cars, with an inter-city seating arrangement. These were used up until around 1990 or so, and then disposed of/scrapped. I'm pretty sure some sat around rusting away at Beech Grove for a while, but have since been scrapped. Two of them somehow ended up under the ownership of Nashville's new Music City Star commuter rail line, who is using them as a parts source for their other cars.

Flambeau 400 ran until 1969 with the gallery cars and even a diner.

[Tadman]

Unfortunately Wisconsin was a granger road state plus packed with short lines. That meant over-trackage became under-trackage somewhere between MILW bankruptcy and CN's buyout of WC. Further, CN is neither passenger friendly nor in the mode of selling to shortlines that might be. They even bought a few shortlines back when PSR meant "we can do it better than anybody else" because they stripped out massive capacity.

It makes me sad to see that the state of upstate Wisconsin railroading is the same as mid-state Indiana railroading. Hostile, slow, and indirect, none of which are good for passenger trains.

That does raise the question of a decent bus. I'm not interested in Greyhound, but Megabus is decent and a South American executive bus would be amazing. But most rural cheese heads are like rural hoosiers. It's a lot easier and second nature to drive the family truck/Explorer to a commuter train station near Chicago or an airport.

I did have a good business trip to Richland Center about 15 years ago. It's at the end of an abandoned MILW branch but WSOR had a few trains around. I wish I had been up there a bit more before the buyout to see the E's and passenger trains but it never worked out. If I recall, a former moderator from this site named Mike is a conductor for WSOR but he's been gone for well over ten years.

[mtuandrew]

I wonder if Miller Brewing Co is a heavy CN shipper. Amtrak on its own has(?) the statutory right of access but not the money, the state could raise the money but doesn’t care enough, the GB Packers have the riders but not the political pull, and CN has the track but not the desire. Miller has the desire for public relations, could have the money in its budget for game-day special service MKE-GBY, and may in fact be able to wheedle the track space out of CN.

And while claiming to reduce drunk driving, Miller could sell a tanker full of beer between those cities

[Jeff Smith]

Admin question: should this topic be merged into Hiawatha? Seems to be some discussion of GB there as well.

[eolesen]

I'd say no.... it's a distinct market except for two weekends when the Bears and Packers happen to play each other...