Projects

New Spur Built At Reedsburg for Grede Foundries — Fall 2006

Concrete foundation for a scale on a new rail spur at Reedsburg is completed. Tom Michele  photo.

By Tom Michele, Sauk-Prairie Star
reproduced by permission

“I’ve been working on the railroad, all the live long day,” is what workers did during the week of November 5, 2006 next to Grede Foundaries in Reedsburg. Working on new railroad tracks being laid as a spur off of the WSOR tracks by the Reedsburg depot onto property adjacent to Grede Foundaries.

We hope to have the 833-foot spur in place by the weekend (Nov. 11-12),” Dewey Sterwald said Tuesday, Nov. 7. “And the scrap metal service in operation in early December.” Sterwald is the vice president and general manager of Lorman Iron and Metal that is installing the rail spur and scrap metal baler and baler power unit next to the Grede plant and to provide scrap metal for Grede processing.

Workers build a track segment for a new 833-foot spur at Reedsburg, Wisconsin that will be used for shipment of scrap steel. Tom Michele photos.
The spur shoots northeast off of the WSOR tracks and is being designed for the possibility of a spur off of the first one. A rail car weigh scale is being installed toward the end of the spur. The scale’s concrete foundation and some of the scale apparatus is already in place. Most of the track is laid and the baler is in place near the entrance to the property. The electrically-powered hydraulic unit to operate the baler is in the wood-frame structure being constructed around the power unit.

Sterwald noted Lorman has its administrative offices in Watertown, another office and large salvage site in Fort Atkinson, with branch operations in Wausau, Eau Claire, and Viroqua. Volkmann Railroad Builders, of the Milwaukee suburb of Menomonee Falls, is doing the rail installation. Volkmann has seven employees on the site. Dan Krall, Inc., of the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis, is constructing the power unit and building. Krall has three workers on site. Pavers will be pouring the 12-inch thick concrete with wire mesh reinforcing this week for the driveway and parking areas.