Surprising Stuff
Bring the Metra to Lake Geneva or somewhere close, like Zenda.
This issue was last formally raised back in 1998, as far as the railroad says. Actually, extending service a bit closer to Lake Geneva (Hebron) was considered only a few years ago. Ed Yaeger, the wonderful man who recently died, was a huge proponent of bringing the railroad back. At one time you could go back and forth to Chicago, Kenosha, and almost totally around Geneva Lake by rail. Ed felt that railroad travel forced people to get together to travel and thereby fought against the modern electronics-induced trend of driving people socially apart. Ed said that the mathematics of moving large masses of material and people just did not add up when considering using automobiles and trucks. Rail is cheaper and delivers a higher quality form of travel. A quiet movement is being regenerated to bring rail back to Lake Geneva. The Geneva Shore Report is going to support that effort with time, free advertising and money.
Woody’s Traveling Liger Exhibit.
The controversy rages. The petition to keep out Woody’s Menagerie and demonstration of tigers, lions and the mixed breed of ligers, is more popular than the advertising program, as presented online. Ringling Brothers ran right smack into the controversy between the need or want of people to see wild animals brought to them near where they live (instead of having to go to the zoo or even Africa) for examination and entertainment, and the belief that caring for these animals properly and allowing them to experience any sort of quality life that is not painful, humiliating and one of enforced miserable captivity cannot be accomplished by circuses or carnivals. The question has to be raised about whether it is better to have these wild animals, most of whom the public would never see, be exposed to, or come close to, exhibited in such a carnival atmosphere, or is this a violation of the animal’s rights, dignity and health?
The most practical way to return train service near Lake Geneva is to connect/extend the Metra from Fox Lake To Zenda. All the track is in place and was used by Amtrak to Janesville for a few years in the early 2000’s. After that it gets difficult since so much track has been removed. If the White River Trail was still a rail line you could have had a direct connection for people in Walworth County to work at the new Foxcom plant. In fact there are years of study online (15!) about extending Metra the 33 miles from its end point in Kenosha thru Racine to Milwaukee. This would also open up the job market to Foxcom instead to clogging I-94. Restoring the line from McHenry”s Metra station back thru Richmond would require re installing track as well and could only reach as far as Genoa City since the right of way into Lake Geneva is all reclaimed and unavailable. A very good book about the history of all these rail lines is “Steam Trains To Geneva Lake” by Paul Behrens
Great suggestions and insight j.Zdenak.
Thanks for your input