UP's ex-CNW Frac Sand Main

This video documents the recent increase in trains on the former Chicago and North Western’s Twin Cities Line, the one-time route of the “400s”. This increase is due to the amazing growth in recent years of hydraulic fracturing or fracking for oil and gas in this country. Nearly seventy percent of the sand used for fracking comes out of Wisconsin and UP handles the largest share of that sand. This historic line is now the property of Union Pacific and until recently was really treated as a secondary line by UP. Today the Adams Line sees more freight trains and much more tonnage than any time since the end of steam in the 1950s. Experts argue that this line has been saved twice in the past decade – first by the addition of a Triple Crown RoadRailer, and then by the frac sand boom. UP has been gradually rebuilding this line and today it hosts a mix of sand and other unit trains, manifest trains, and the Triple Crown train. Although the sand business on this line has receded somewhat from its peak in 2014, UP still puts on quite a show with their long trains and distributed power. This program shows parts of three days and one night of action on UP’s Adams and Wyeville Subdivisions often referred to by railfans as the Adams Line between Wyeville and Ashippun, thirty-eight miles west of Milwaukee in April of 2015. This DVD can be watched with and without narration.