RC History

oute from their main line at Neenah to Superior Falls to connect with the WR&SF. As fate would have it, the Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad (now known as the “Old Soo Line”) took control of both railroads in 1908 and thus owned all trackage between Stevens Point and Neenah. They used the “Riverside” line (as Soo timetables referred to it) with the intention of lowering congestion on their main line between the two cities via Waupaca. The Green Bay and Western built a parallel branch line to Superior Falls in 1947 to switch their half of the Superior Paper plant, and interchange with the Soo. In 1961, the “Old Soo” officially merged with the WC, WR&SF, and the Duluth, South Shore, and Atlantic Railroad to become the Soo Line Railroad (or the “new Soo”). The line through Riverside and Superior Falls (known as the "Riverside line") became a secondary line on the Soo, although the Soo attempted to bring new life to the line (and lessen congestion on their other route) by rerouting the "Laker" passenger service. Slightly better fortunes for the expensive train couldn’t save it from demise, and it was discontinued in 1965.

Freight traffic began to dissipate during the late 1960s and, by the 1970s, things became difficult for the Soo to compete. Trucks gave customers cheaper rates while avoiding the railroad industry's crippling rates and regulations. By 1978, one train each way moved along the ex-WR&SF/WC line, mainly to serve the large Superior Paper mill primarily served by the Green Bay and Western. In 1980, the strict regulations that had suffocated the rail industry for nearly two decades were lessened, and abandonments of lightly-trafficked lines ruled the day. The Soo was no exception; in 1981 the railroad filed papers with the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to abandon the lightly-used "Riverside line". Challenges from the communities and industries located along the route delayed rulings for several years, and the ICC planned to rule on the abandonments in late-1985.

Just as the ICC was to make a ruling, the Soo won the bidding war for the bankrupt Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific (commonly known as Milwaukee Road) and began to reroute the majority of their trains over the old Milwaukee. This resulted in vastly reduced traffic throughout much of Wisconsin, and resulted in a change in strategy for the Soo. As a result of the purchase, all

outstanding abandonments of Soo Line tracks were cancelled, and the “Riverside line" survived another day.

To avoid abandoning the customers it served on its old lines throughout Wisconsin, the Soo organized a regional subsidiary in 1986. Formed in hopes of capitalizing on the success of other regional railroads, the Lake States Transportation Division was a bold plan by the Soo to operate a separate “railroad within a railroad”. However, Lake States never achieved much success. The railroad's long-standing union agreements prevented the necessary downsizing of crew sizes, and the Lake States could not be profitable like other regionals of the time. In addition, many of the older locomotives Lake States used along the lines could not handle the suddenly heavy workload, and locomotive shortages prevented the Lake States from serving all of its old customers.

However, the underlying problem was that much of the traffic was now operated by trucks. It was clear that the Soo's old lines had to be sold, and it didn't take long to find a bidder. In 1987, the Lake States was sold to a group of investors which named their new railroad Wisconsin Central Ltd (WC).

The WC deal did not include the old “Riverside line” between Stevens Point and Neenah via Riverside and Superior Falls, seeing how the route had not seen major business since the late-1960s. The tracks were in rough shape, and a large number of the businesses along the route were no longer served by the railroads. Many figured railroad service would never come back. However, a group of forward-thinking investors from Riverside, Wisconsin (Central Wisconsin Railroad Revitalization, LLC) saw promise, and subsequently bought the ex-WC, exx-WR&SF line and all railroad-related property for $28.5 million. On October 26th, 1989, the Riverside Central Railroad (RC) was born.

Finding a name for the new railroad was easy, as the line had been known as the “Riverside line” by the Soo for years. The simplicity ended fairly rapidly thereafter for the RC, as the investors almost immediately encountered problems. The RC leased (and later bought outright) the equipment needed for operation, but the track hadn’t been used regularly in almost two decades and was deteriorating rapidly. The only way this could be fixed was to sell the railroad and use the money to rehabilitate the crumbling infrastructure. The investors sold RC to Itel Rail Corporation (IRC), a company which owned Wisconsin railroads Fox River Valley (FRV) and Green Bay and Western (GBW). Itel used surplus gains from 1989 to buy the RC, and envisioned a regional rail system among the three individual railroads. Each railroad would continue to have its own corporate structures, union or non-union affiliations, and paint schemes. This was Itel’s last-ditch effort at turning a profit within their rail division. Meanwhile, the original investors of the RC used the money from Itel to repair all damaged track and property and built modern grade crossings. The money was also used to build a yard and engine facility, and the official headquarters building in Riverside, Wisconsin.

Still, the increasingly challenging dilemma faced by Midwestern railroads during the late 1980s was the amount of freight traffic that had been rapidly being taken over by the trucking industry. The RC, as well as other railroads in Wisconsin, had to convince customers who had switched in the 1970s that the railroads could be (A) just as reliable and (B) more cost-efficient than trucks. Surprisingly, most of the customers along the RC such as Geo. Roberts Printing and Webster Mills Grain were disappointed with late shipments and damaged products from the trucking business and were eager to give the work back to the railroad. Almost immediately after start-up, the RC signed agreements with 3 major businesses: Superior Paper, Airgas Oil and The Supply Company. The RC quickly picked up several other businesses along the route and was ready to start doing business over the line.

By their first summer, the Riverside Central was in the black and becoming a thriving regional railroad. With price rates below that of trucks with twice the business capacity, the RC was making it practical for customers to choose the railroad to deliver their goods. In 1990, Trains Magazine named the Riverside Central the “up-and-coming railroad of the year”.

By this time, the RC was ready to expand its system in order to help Itel compete with another “up-and-comer”, the Wisconsin Central. As a whole, Itel’s three systems were too small and had just one connection with the west (GBW and Burlington Northern at East Winona). If the Itel system could acquire a route to provide connections with western and Canadian railroads, it would have enough business to sustain itself as a worthy competitor of the Wisconsin Central.

The RC found that line when the Chicago and Northwestern put its 120-mile Eau Claire to Superior line up for sale in 1990. The C&NW was beginning to streamline its operations to increase efficiency, in preparation for a takeover by the Union Pacific. The RC purchased the line, but still had a problem: there wasn’t a direct connection to its line between Stevens Point and Neenah.

To solve this issue, the RC built a 72-mile connection between a point called Belton (near Eagle Point, Wisconsin) and the GBW main at City Point, Wisconsin. Then, in an agreement between the GBW and RC, the line between City Point and Riverside was double-tracked. Known as the “City Point Joint Line”, both railroads own and maintain this track, while GBW continues to own the rights to their industries. The RC then transfers back to its home rails at Riverside, and trains continue east on the FRVR; either north to Green Bay or south to Milwaukee, Chicago, and eastern destinations.

The immediate results were overwhelmingly positive once this line was built, not only for the RC but for the entire Itel system. Thanks to increased overall traffic, the three railroads dug Itel out of a cash crunch, and each railroad was made profitable. The FRVR, with newly-made improvements on all of its trackage, benefitted the most, and was able to escape the previously debilitating restrictions the C&NW had put on them at startup. The GBW found bridge traffic to replace the traffic from Michigan ferries lost in the early-1980s and paper mill traffic lost to the Wisconsin Central in the early-1990s. And the entire system ended up working like clockwork...

(More to be added later)

Thanks to Mike Danneman (via RailPictures.net) and H.H. Dennison (via Friends of 2713) for the photos used in this page. Also thanks to the following books: The Little Jewel by Wallace W. Abby, The Green Bay & Western by Stan Waller, and Wisconsin Central, Railroad Success Story by Otto Dobnick. All are absolutely wonderful texts and we are thoroughly grateful for the information, inspiration, and entertainment bestowed upon us by these works.

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