A meeting is planned in April between senior representatives of Canadian National railroad and the Northwoods Rail Transit Commission.
The Commission involves 13 counties in northeastern Wisconsin and seven counties in the U.P. They have been meeting regularly to see if freight rail service can continue in the region. Canadian National is the main freight rail server in the region. There have been rumblings from the rail company about service cutbacks.
The Commission was formed to demonstrate the need to keep service here and possibly expand it if more business can be found. Wendy Gehlhoff from Florence county is chairperson of the Commission. She says meeting face-to-face with the rail firm is critical...
"....basically to discuss opportunities and ways of bringing business back to some of the lighter density rails in northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan..."
Gehlhoff says she hopes they can find common ground to provide more service...
".....I guess just defining expectations on both sides so together we can continue to explore this opportunity and find ways to go about (finding) the business that is likely out there but is hard to put a concrete number to...."
Gehlhoff says the meeting is designed to talk about opportunities, especially looking for ways to define businesses that are potential users of freight rail that aren't being served now.
The Commission has explored the idea of getting public money to buy logging rail cars, enabling the freight line to use the cars without having to make a substantial investment.
Gehlhoff says they were unsuccessful in getting a federal DOT grant to help the Commission's activities. She says they will rework the application after talking to DOT officials about having a better funding chance in the highly competitive grant.
