Wauwatosa Village (Harwood Avenue Crossing)

The place to stand is the gated pedestrian and trail crossing where Harwood Avenue meets CPKC's Watertown Subdivision, at milepost 90.6, right beside the red 1854 Little Red Store. OpenStreetMap maps paved pedestrian walks, a marked path crossing and full barrier gates on the footpaths themselves, and the FRA lists the crossing as public (inventory number 390504Y). It is also the crossing where the Village of Wauwatosa's Holiday Train event gathers the public every December.

Two main tracks cross here, and immediately east of the crossing they run onto a 1905 pony truss over the Menomonee River. About 100 m (330 ft) west, Harmonee Avenue (WIS 181) passes over the line on a road bridge. That makes for a short, tight scene between two structures, and the gates, bells and lights are the first warning you get.

That warning matters more than usual because the FRA inventory lists a 24-hour whistle ban at Harwood Avenue: this is a quiet zone, and trains do not routinely sound their horns through it. A scanner helps. Steel Highway Railcams, which runs a live camera at this crossing, publishes the channels it monitors here: AAR 84 (161.370 MHz) and AAR 94 (161.520 MHz).

The same live stream is a practical tool before a visit: it shows whether the line is busy and whether the gates are working, and it is free to watch on YouTube.

This is a village-centre scene rather than open country. The crossing sits where the Menomonee River, the old Plank Road and the railroad meet, the very junction around which Wauwatosa grew, and the setting still reads that way: the small red Little Red Store a few steps from the rails, the steel truss of the river bridge, the green strip of the Menomonee River Parkway along the water, and the restaurants and shops of the village a short walk north.

The railroad bridge is a riveted Warren pony truss of eight panels, built in 1905 and widened in 1910 to carry two tracks. Its low trusses keep the trains fully visible as they cross the river, which is what makes this spot more than a plain grade crossing.

Hart Park, the 19.5-acre (7.9 ha) city park founded in 1921, lies just across the river to the south-east and is the natural parking and picnic base for a visit.

The line through Wauwatosa contains the oldest stretch of railroad track in Wisconsin: the Milwaukee and Mississippi Railroad laid track between Milwaukee and Brookfield in 1850, reached Watertown by 1855 and Portage in 1864. The route later became part of the Milwaukee Road, passed to the Soo Line after the Milwaukee Road ceased operations, and came to CPKC with the Soo Line.

The Little Red Store was built in 1854 by Dr. Levi Halsted in the centre of the village, at the meeting point of the Plank Road, the Menomonee River and the railroad. According to the Milwaukee County Historical Society it served as the community's first railroad depot and express office and remains the oldest standing post office building in Milwaukee County. The Wauwatosa Historical Society records that Lysander Gridley served there as railroad station agent and village postmaster until a new station was built on State Street in 1890, and that the building was moved a short distance west in 1955. It was designated a City of Wauwatosa landmark in 1978 and received Milwaukee County landmark status in 2008. The Wauwatosa Historical Society now occupies it.

The river bridge next to it dates from 1905, when the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway replaced an 1884 truss; that older truss was reused at Bridge Q-96 across the Root River near Houston, Minnesota.

Few trackside spots come with their own 170-year-old depot. The Little Red Store stood beside these rails as the village's first depot and express office, on what is also the oldest stretch of railroad track in Wisconsin, and it is still here, a few metres from a double-track main line that carries two Amtrak long-distance and intercity trains.

The crossing is also the town's own railway stage. The CPKC Holiday Train's Wauwatosa stop happens right here, promoted by the Village of Wauwatosa, with parking at Hart Park and a footbridge from the park to the tracks.

And it is one of the few spots you can scout from home: Steel Highway Railcams streams this crossing live on YouTube, hosted by the Wauwatosa Historical Society, so you can see what the line is doing before you leave.