Postby mulad » September 16th, 2015, 9:02 pm
Yeah, I'm pretty frustrated that all of the different links to Stillwater have been ripped out at this point. If there had been a decent push a decade ago to really reconnect the city, it might have worked to include some extra grading in the St. Croix Crossing project to have a branch come off of that kink in the Union Pacific line near Bayport and head along the riverfront into downtown. It still wouldn't be that hard today to have a short branch end at the Washington County Courthouse building. Unfortunately, both cases would probably need to be the end of the line.
I should try to figure out the ridership on the express buses that serve Stillwater...
The other more major towns/cities have some issues too. As people have mentioned, Menomonie has a problem of indirect access, and that problem is at play to certain extents in Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls too. It's not possible to get all the way into downtown Eau Claire on existing tracks, though they pass within a couple blocks. With the way rails are configured today, an extension to Chippewa Falls would require having a train run in the reverse direction on that last leg, though that may be resolvable since it looks like there's a half-decent abandoned corridor that runs along Galloway Street and then north paralleling Business US-53.
The tracks in Chippewa Falls itself are a bit strange -- it's hard to tell on Google Maps, but it's a steep climb going northeast from downtown Chippewa on Grand Avenue and other streets. Putting a station on the tracks as the get closest to Grand Avenue would be decent enough, but that's a good 3/4 mile from the town center. On the other hand, it puts it closer to places like Cray, Chippewa Valley Technical College, and St. Joseph's Hospital (Small-town sprawl! Yay! Or not...)
Of course, that branch of track goes in the wrong direction if you eventually want to reach Green Bay. There's always something wrong.