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The Ex-Illinois Central Railroad Between Madison and Monroe, WI - Dec 1st, 1999 Work progresses on the Ex- IC railroad removal. The crew is shown here working on the Commonwealth Ave grade crossing in Madison, WI. After they finished with Odana Road, all equipment was re-located at Commonwealth Ave. Work started at the Glenway crossing and progressed northward to Commonwealth. Because Commonwealth is the last grade crossing before Monroe St, all material was brought to Commonwealth to be hauled away. Workers traveled by rail to Monroe St and removed rail southward to Commonwealth Ave. The rails just noth of Commonwealth were the very last to be removed. The photo on the top left shows the Oshkosh Truck all loaded up and ready to be taken back to Milwaukee. This truck, with hy-rail equipment installed, was used to travel ahead of the claw picker. Crews on this truck used heavy cutting torches to cut the nuts off from the joint bars that hold two sections of rail together. The Oshkosh also pulled two flat cars where the removed rails would ride back to the next available crossing. The rails were then picked up by truck and hauled away to Milwaukee. The truck had a water tank on the back to extinguish fires that the cutting torch started. This was the last rail-vehicle to run on the rails of the Ex-IC railroad between Monroe and Madison. The top center photo shows Steve, the crew foreman directing traffic during loading operations on Commonwealth Ave.. Pictured on the top right is important history being made! The claw machine shown here is removing the LAST rail from the old IC railroad in Madison. This occurred at 1:37 PM on December 1st, 1999. The only rail left on the IC now is rail which is in the three remaining road crossings. This will be removed by crews after the other rail is hauled and the crew is done with clean up and hauling away the material that was removed before. Middle left is another shot of the last rail coming up. The middle center photo shows the foreman's truck and the crew loading rail in the background. Middle right photo shows another angle of the crew loading the last rails from the IC. On the bottom left, is a view of the crossing from the motorist's point of view. Bottom center shows the point where the rail get cut at the crossings. This crew may remove rail from the street later. This depends on weather they can still get asphalt this time of the year. Sometimes a highway crew will do this and fill the crossing in with blacktop. Bottom right shows the cutting detail at the crossing from the torch. If things remain on schedule, work should be almost complete. All they have to do is clean up and haul away anything left over. Another crew is removing the ties and hauling them away. Just in... A Link Belt crane, removing part of the ex-IC railroad fell off a trestle just north of Bellevile, WI. Click here to see a photo and read the story. Would you like to know what happened to the grade crossing signals on the ex-IC railroad in the Madison, WI area? Click here to find out. Keep checking back for final updates as they become available. Home | Jim's Railroad Motorcars | Railroads in Green County | Back
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