Byron Hill is a railroad feature in eastern

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

between the town of

Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...

and the city of Fond du Lac. The hill is on the

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN i ...

Waukesha Subdivision The Waukesha Subdivision or Waukesha Sub is a railway line owned and operated by the Canadian National Railway. It meets the Neenah Subdivision to the north in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin and runs south to Chicago, Illinois. History Construction ...

, which used to be operated by the

Soo Line Railroad The Soo Line Railroad is the primary United States railroad subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway , one of seven U.S. Class I railroads, controlled through the Soo Line Corporation. Although it is named for the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sa ...

. The Wisconsin Central Railroad first operated over this hill until 1961 when it was merged into the Soo. In 1987, the Soo launched the

Lake States Transportation Division The Lake States Transportation Division (LSTD) was a wholly owned division of the Soo Line Railroad that existed from 1986 until 1987. The bankruptcy of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (Milwaukee Road) saw Soo Line acquire its ...

to sell off its least profitable lines. That same year,

Wisconsin Central Ltd. Wisconsin Central Ltd. is a railroad subsidiary of Canadian National. At one time, its parent Wisconsin Central Transportation Corporation owned or operated railroads in the United States, Canada (Algoma Central Railway), the United Kingdom (DB ...

was created. It operated for 14 years until 2001 when CN absorbed the WC. It features as many as 25 trains per day. Byron Hill is noteworthy in that

helper engine A bank engine (United Kingdom/Australia) (colloquially a banker), banking engine, helper engine or pusher engine (North America) is a railway locomotive that temporarily assists a train that requires additional power or traction to climb a grad ...

s are sometimes still used to assist trains making it over the grade.

References

{{FondduLacCountyWI-geo-stub Rail infrastructure in Wisconsin Canadian National Railway facilities Soo Line Railroad Geography of Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin