Gandy Dancer Bike Trail

On Friday, June 22^nd, Matt Whitmore and I biked the Gandy Dancer Train from Siren, WI to Danbury and back.  I really wanted to do this section for 2 reasons.  First, I had biked the section from St. Croix Falls to Siren so this last 16 mile stretch would complete the 47 mile trail.  Secondly, there is a 525-foot railroad trestle over the St. Croix River and it’s 75 feet high.  So we left Siren about 8 AM:

 

 

A beautiful morning as we head north:

 

 

Soon we come to a neat bridge crossing the Clam River , about 40 feet high:

 

 

 

The Soo Line’s handiwork still shows, even if the DNR has redone the decking:

 

 

Matt still looks chipper(and not sweating).  Of course, we’ve only gone 1 mile so far:

 

 

The first town we come to is Webster:

 

 

I wonder what the trackage looked like here in the 50s????   Where was the depot????

 

 

On the north side of Webster we found this neat old creamery:

 

 

It was obviously served by rail as evidenced by the NO CLEARANCE sign:

 

 

Just beyond that was a feed mile on the spur, both buildings now abandoned:

 

 

Heading north again, we cross the Yellow River , for the first time:

 

 

Then we pass by beautiful Yellow Lake :

 

 

Coming into Danbury , we cross over another high trestle:

 

 

 

You can see we’re up in the air pretty good by this shot:

 

 

We’re at the end of the bicycle portion of the trail, but we still have a little less than a mile to the big trestle.  The next part of the trail is ATV and is sand and rocks!!!   It was REALLY hard riding in it.  Matt said he worked harder riding this part of the trail than the first 15 miles combined!!

 

 

OK—there she is.  What we’ve come to see:

 

 

Enjoy these spectacular views of the trestle:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matt wasn’t sure if there were railroad ties under the decking or not so he just had to check it out:

 

 

Evidence of the previous wood trestle still exists.  Can you imagine what this structure looked like when it was wood????

 

 

With that we headed back.  About a 33-mile round trip.  Even the deer flies weren’t TOO bad.  A fun day and a chance to pursue some more rail history.

 

Arlyn

Manley - Mason City Trip

This past weekend was the Albert Lea Train Show.  On Sunday morning Joe Lewis and I took a railfanning trip to Manley and Mason City, Iowa.  Here are a few pictures.  Some were shot directly into the morning sun so aren't high quality, but it was very cold outside and we shot most pix from inside the car.

We followed Highway 65 which paralleled the Union Pacific main track.  Just south of Albert Lea is a gigantic ethanol plant, no pictures.  There was no activity there early Sunday morning so we were able to drive all around the property and see it close up.  Lots of ethanol tank cars and they had their own car mover.

Manley, Iowa is the northern end of the Iowa Northern Railroad.  The Iowa Northern runs on former Rock Island trackage from Manley through Davenport to Cedar Rapids.  As we entered Manley we saw this engine and caboose.  They were sitting on a display track beside their main track and were probably a gift to the City.

 The Iowa Northern must enter the Union Pacific main for a short distance and enter their "yard," which is really just a few storage tracks.  But beside the yard was a former Rock Island roundhouse and turntable, all intact.  The roundhouse had 6 stalls in one part, then a through track, then 10 more stalls.  I wonder what is in that roundhouse now!!

Mason City railroads include Union Pacific, the ICE, and the Iowa Traction.  But the Lehigh Cement Company had 2 diesels.  First a traditional unity although it's remote controlled.

Check out his unit!!!  Can anyone tell me what kind of engine this is??
 

The Union Pacific has a big yard.  Here's a little part of it.

Here is the ICE depot.

Lots of motive power in their yard:

Looks like they are ready for winter:

But what we really wanted to see was the Iowa Traction, probably one of the few electric freight lines left in the U.S.  We found 4 of their engines:

We didn't find many trains running.  A CN freight waited for this Uncle Pete to clear (there are other words for the UP, not all positive!!)