YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK.

It must be election season.  Wisconsin just got some printed money to put a freight train bypass back in place.

Senator Tammy Baldwin announced Monday morning that a $72.8 million federal grant was awarded that will fund a critical freight bypass near the Milwaukee Intermodal Station. It’s a lynchpin to increasing the frequency of the Amtrak Hiawatha Service passenger train between Milwaukee and Chicago.

Building the alternative route, known as the Muskego Yard Bypass, has long been identified as a critical infrastructure component to expand the amount of passenger rail service in Milwaukee.

“Wisconsin families and businesses deserve modern, reliable, and safe transportation – and that includes rail,” said Baldwin in a statement. “I’m proud to deliver for Wisconsin, helping more folks conveniently travel by train, keeping costs down for businesses and consumers, and ensuring our Made in Wisconsin economy can keep moving forward.”

The funding will pay to construct a two-track mainline through the Muskego Yard, the large railyard in the Menomonee Valley. Currently, many freight trains avoid the yard and run through the Milwaukee Intermodal Station to avoid various height, speed and operational constraints in the Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) railyard. But in doing so, the freight trains reduce capacity at the state’s premier passenger train facility.

There are four platform tracks in the station, narrowing to two at the east throat for the Menomonee River drawbridge.  Currently, there is a track where this Muskego Yard Bypass will go.  Years ago, there were two freight tracks coming eastbound out of Muskego Yard.  They're at right in this photograph of an Amtrak train in the spring of 1972.

That train, should you be curious, is the Hiawatha bound at least for Minneapolis, and possibly for the West Coast.  I lost track of the tri-weekly or daily timetablings of that service, which was in the timetable from late 1971 until the Carter cutbacks in 1979.  It ran through Wisconsin on a similar schedule to the current Borealis.

Much  of the money goes to build new bridges.  I don't know whether the new Burnham Canal bridge will be moveable.  The existing truss span lacks adequate vertical clearance for stack trains.

Wisconsin, in 2020, won a $26.6 million grant for what was to be a $55 million bypass project. But rising costs, attributed to inflation and bridge replacement needs, caused the state to pursue a second grant, said Lisa Stern, WisDOT chief of railroads and harbors, in March 2023.

“The infrastructure is really meant for future [CPKC] growth,” Stern told a Common Council committee.

But she said CPKC had agreed to a key provision: once the state secured the funding, it could advance an eighth-daily roundtrip on the Amtrak Hiawatha Service.

WisDOT, with federal support, is already building a second platform at the Milwaukee Airport Rail Station to increase operational flexibility for both freight and passenger trains.

On Monday, Stern told Urban Milwaukee that the airport project is scheduled to be completed in 2026. The state also anticipates taking possession in 2026 of new cars it purchased that are necessary to operate more service.

The completion of the airport station project, new equipment and Muskego Yard funding are all required to increase Hiawatha’s frequency, said Stern.

Diverting trains away from the downtown train station also benefits non-riders. Sending trains through the freight yard will reduce the number of trains and length of time they take to pass through grade crossings at N. Plankinton Avenue, N. 13th Street and W. Greves Street.

A previous plan to increase the daily roundtrip total from seven to 10 was scuttled by Illinois officials in 2019 after state officials nixed a planned siding in Glenview, Illinois which would have allowed freight trains to wait for faster passenger trains to pass.

For the Muskego Yard bypass, bridges over the Menomonee River and Burnham Canal at each end of the yard, first built for the now-defunct Milwaukee Road, would be replaced while three bridges over a number of Walker’s Point streets (1st, 2nd and Florida) would be rehabilitated. A small bridge over an alley between S. 2nd St. and S. 3rd St., near The Yards apartment building, would be removed.

One of the Illinois siding projects involved shared trackage with Union Pacific using their former Freight Main and the objections from Illinois provide material for future advocacy.  Once upon a time there were recessing sidings for freight trains on both sides of the main line at an interlocking called A-68, in Wisconsin, and as long as the freight railroads are taking public money for infrastructure improvements, why not put the passenger trains on a flyover and route all the freight trains via Union Pacific's Freight Main, which was built with two tracks (one since removed.)