Soo Line Train 18 in 1976 from Park Falls

It was 1976, and there is the locomotive 1776 painted for the country's bicentennial. Here's train no. 18, Thursday, March 24, 1976, 89 cars with 52 for Prentice (wow that's a lot, and rare) and caboose No. 50 (with no picture of that but at least I wrote it down)

There's 7 covered hoppers up front, rare for this train. I could guess they are coming back empty from fertilizer service from Ashland where there are a few farms in the big northwoods. Or, since they are Great Northern and Burlington cars, maybe they came across from the BN at Ashland? And then I can squint in the distance for the typical pulpwood gondolas. Some of the 'beauty' of these trains is the variety of locomotives, because there was a 'rule' that there must always be a GP with an older F-unit, for dependability to at least keep a crew from being stranded in this remote area.

I made a crude map to keep track of the sources of railroad freight that we'll see in these pictures.
I made this page in response to a facebook question about what the TRAINs looked like on the Ashland line.
And I mean trains, not just locomotives.
Slide film and processing cost over 30 cents a picture, but I realized years later that I wished I would have taken more pictures of the middle and end of trains. Now that it's gone . . .
Now, if someone would have kept an old train car paper list, we could build a real story about rail traffic in the northwoods.

For this page, I went through one of my slide files and picked just views that include some freight CARS
so we can understand what was being hauled.
Most of these scenes are from the Park Falls area from 1976 to 1981, when I lived there.

Train number 18 left Park Falls every morning on Tuesday, Wed, Thurs, Friday, and Saturday.
They headed south and would pick up a few cars in Prentice, and not much else along the way,
and terminated in Stevens Point.
So when people ask in 2025, what kind of trains ran through Medford and Spencer (now out of service),
these pictures show some very typical trains of the 1970's.
The local switch job that ran Spencer to Medord and sometimes even to Prentice
would take care of hauling several cars on that stretch,
so 18 didn't have to stop along there often in that decade.

This part of the state has lost a lot of service as of 2025.

Trains no longer run north of Mellen due to the (2016?) washouts of some big bridges.
The Ironwood line had it rails pulled about ?1993?
Trains don't run from Medford to Prentice, it's been a rail trail for 30 years.

Trains haven't run from Spencer to Medford since (2023?) but the rails are still there.

The only tracks in service are from Prentice to Park Falls,
but actually it seems the Fifield pulpwood loading siding is the official North end of the line in 2025.

The Park Falls paper mill has finally closed forever in 2024,
and that saw 30 cars a day of traffic in its hey-day.

Just when I though most of these pictures were of train 18, here's one of 17 (the northbound)
taken south of Fifield, 40+ mph, at sunset in Feb 77
I could guess that 2 of the first 4 box cars are empty for paper loading at Park Falls?
The tank car might be an empty for spent sulphite cooking liquor.

No. 18 leaving Park Falls. March, 1977, with 4 pulp wood and the many 50ft boxcars of wood chips that came from Ironwood the night before from Train 19, the Ashland train.

March 23, 1977, a Wednesday. No. 18 south of Fifield, with 60+ cars. The lead plug door should be paper rolls from Park Falls, the double door could be a load of paper or maybe the rare car from the Lousiana Pacific veneer mill in Mellen, or a car that was picked up at Phillips 'fuzzboard' plant the night before, hauled to Park Falls, and is heading back south today. And the two with boards in the doors are woodchips from Ironwood, bound for Consolidated Paper of Wisconsin Rapids. They will be set out at Marshfield and hauled on a different train to get to Rapids.

The reporting mark is struck out and the chalk shows Sales Order 8370 Canada. In 2025, I could speculate that this 40ft car was going to Canada to serve as a grain car on light service branchlines?

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No. 18, Tuesday March 29, 1977, 7am; one gon, lots of wood chips, one covered hopper, and caboose no. 44

No. 17 (northbound) Wed March 30, 1977, at Maple Ridge Road. empty car for Ironwood

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No. 18 Thursday March 31, 1977 in some snow flakes. Ektachrome 160 slide grain adding to the blur. The Consolidated gon is empty, its likely it was an empty that came up on 17 last night and will be set out at the Fifield siding a few miles ahead. Two tank cars that look too small for the usual spent suphite liquor loads; maybe they are petroleum empties from Ashland or Ewen Mich.? Although, the first has some stains, I wonder if it could a Sulphur empty from the paper mill, although most of their sulphur came from Montana via the BN through Ashland. Four wood chip boxcars? Once again there are covered hoppers, which I consider rare up here. And I have a written note, there was caboose no. 55, with no picture of that

April 1, 1977, a Friday and 7am. No. 18 south of Fifield at the South Fork of the Flambeau River.
This is the correct place to expect a loaded Consolidated gon, just picked up from the siding that is a mile north of here.
I have a written note that the caboose was no. 40 (with no picture of that)

Fresh new snow for No. 18, Tuesday April 5, 1977 Three tank cars, maybe with spent suphite liquor from the Paper Mill

No. 18, April 6, 1977, a Wednesday, 33 cars at Fifield at 7am Pulpwood, and open door boxcar from ?, and in the distance are the wood chip boxcars from Ironwood

No; 18 April 7, 1977, a Thursday. with caboose 113 (no picture of it) I could guess the first cars are paper loads? Or copper ingots from White Pine mine?

No. 18 approaching Prentice, as viewed from the Highway overpass. I guess the two plug doors are paper rolls from Park Falls. And a tank car of spent sulphite liquor.

Jan 1980, and I would guess the two boxcars will be for paper rolls

Jan 1980, and I would guess the boxcar will be for paper rolls

Jan 1980

no date or written info on this one, but I guess 1980

No. 18 pulling out of the sag of the Black River, north of Little Black, March 1983, taken with a 2X extender stacked with 200mm zoom lens, with Ektachrome film, and it looked better before the film aged. I can see pulpwood, and not much else, through the exhaust heat.

Another slide with a 2X extender stacked with 200mm zoom lens, although I don't know why because you can walk right up to this location at Perkins Street in Medford This location is one of the end-of-service red flag locations in 2021. This was the Medford local in June 1988, and the rails were out north of town.

No.. 18 Jan 17, 1977, 3pm Saturday afternoon, seen from the Highway 13 overpass south of Westboro. There's one Soo Line covered hopper. One tie gon, 3 pulpwood gons. And I think that's two green Algoma Central wood chip high side gons with mesh top covers and snow, probably picked up at Prentice. And I have a slide of the caboose, but that slide is at Appleton, hoping that it can be used in the Soo caboose book that Mike P is working on in 2025