Tunnel City, Wisconsin


Tunnel City is an unincorporated census-designated place in the town of Greenfield, Monroe County, Wisconsin, United States, named after the train tunnel through a hill just to the west of town.

First tunnel

This first tunnel was built by the La Crosse and Milwaukee railroad, and used by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad. The tunnel was completed in 1858 as the last segment of the rail route from Milwaukee to La Crosse. The station was simply named "Tunnel". The existing track is owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway, whose Soo Line subsidiary purchased the assets of the Milwaukee Road. The track carries Amtrak’s Empire Builder passenger train, though rail traffic is dominated by freight as the Tomah Subdivision. The Empire Builder does not stop in Tunnel City. This tunnel was updated in 1861. The Soo Line had raised the bore of the tunnel in 1992 to accommodate double stack traffic. The Soo Line considered excavating the hill or "daylighting" the tunnel bore.

Census information

As of the 2010 census, its population is 106. Tunnel City has an area of, all of it land.

Second tunnel

The Milwaukee, Sparta, and Northwestern Railroad Company, a subsidiary of the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company, built the "Air Line" or "Adams Cutoff" towards Sparta, Wisconsin in 1910. This is when the second tunnel through the hill west of the town was constructed. It is just to the north of the older tunnel and parallel. This 1910 tunnel collapsed in March 1973. An extra heavy snow added to already saturated ground. The Chicago and North Western rerouted to the older Milwaukee tunnel. The CNW route, to Onalaska and Winona, is now abandoned west of the 1910 tunnel. The Union Pacific Railroad, which purchased the CNW, has trackage rights from Tunnel City through La Crosse on the Canadian Pacific track. These rights date from the CNW tunnel collapse in 1973.

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