Eric Murphy
It would be difficult for passenger trains continuing from Madison to the Twin Cities to depart from the Webcrafters site, according to transportation planner Liz Callin.
When Sheridan Wisconsin, formerly known as Webcrafters, announced it would shut down in June and lay off 116 workers, former Ald. Brian Benford and others wondered whether the company’s Fordem Avenue site could be a perfect candidate for a potential new Amtrak station.
Madison’s transportation department took a last-minute look to consider the possibility as it prepares to narrow down sites for the station this summer, but ultimately determined the location just wouldn’t be viable for a passenger rail station.
“It has major rail operational problems,” Liz Callin, project manager for the city’s passenger rail study, tells Isthmus. Trains continuing to the Twin Cities would have to leave town on tracks owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City that go past the airport, not the ones that head north along Sherman Avenue and Northport Drive.
“Getting from Webcrafters north to the C[anadian] P[acific] stub requires crossing all the tracks in the [Wisconsin & Southern Railroad] yard right in the middle of it. There are multiple ways a WSOR train could be blocking the Amtrak train,” says Callin. “To oversimplify a little, Webcrafters is not on the route to St. Paul, it’s on the way to Waunakee and Reedsburg.”
Another reason the city decided not to move forward with considering the site was its lack of proximity to Madison’s new bus rapid transit system. “Of the other eight sites we’re looking at, all are within walking distance of a BRT station that is either under construction or planned,” says Callin.
Callin says the city will announce its narrowed list of viable sites for the potential Amtrak station this summer.
