By Scott Lothes

Madison, Wisconsin, might be the only place in the world where two railroad lines cross at grade on causeways in the middle of a lake. The Badger State’s capital city is also home to the Center for Railroad Photography & Art’s offices and archives, and that’s because of John Gruber, our principal founder. Gruber (1936-2018) came to Madison to attend the University of Wisconsin and made the city his home for the rest of his life, photographing its railroads extensively all along the way. In 2011, I moved to Madison to become the Center’s full-time executive director and have been here ever since…and I sometimes photograph the railroads that remain.

Introducing this blog

Photography is a way of capturing particular moments at particular places, and I find special meaning in synergies between photographs that share common threads. While our collections at the Center for Railroad Photography & Art span the globe, many of the places depicted in them have called out to photographers (and other artists) across generations. As our archive continues to grow, I find more and more images of scenes where I have also aimed a camera. And I keep adding to this alignment myself, by continuing to travel and visit railways in more places, often following in the footsteps—both intentionally and serendipitously—of photographers whose work is now part of our collection.

To provide a forum for investigating some of these photographic intersections, we’re launching this blog—which we’ve decided to call “Collection Tracking.” In each of my posts, I’ll compare photographs from our collections with my own from the same place. We also welcome (and heartily encourage) guest contributions; if you have an idea, please reach out by email to scott [at] railphoto-art.org. We’re always looking for more ways for you to engage with the images in our collections and to make connections between historic and contemporary photographs. 

The location

Downtown Madison, Wisconsin, is on an isthmus, a glacial drumlin on a northeast-southwest axis with Lake Mendota to the northwest and Lake Monona to the southeast. When the first railroad arrived in Madison in 1854—Milwaukee Road predecessor Milwaukee & Mississippi—the most practical direct route onto the isthmus took the tracks across a bay at the western edge of Lake Monona. Ten years later, the Chicago & North Western also crossed that bay—on a different angle that also forced them to cross the earlier line, creating the diamond in the lake. 

Both railroads called the location Monona Crossing, MX for short. Traffic on the Chicago & North Western grew heavy enough for two tracks, and a tower stood in the southern quadrant until the mid 1950s. Even after it came down and North Western removed its second track, the location has remained compelling. 

The photographs

The first pair of images begins with John Gruber’s winter view of Milwaukee Road passenger train no. 117, The Varsity, crossing frozen Monona Bay while rolling off the last mile of its 140-mile run from Chicago on December 12, 1963. The train includes a full-length dome car, and the rear car is passing a signal that protects with the diamond with the Chicago & North Western, out of frame to the right. In the distance stands the Wisconsin State Capitol, completed in 1917 and the third on the site. To its left is St. Raphael’s Cathedral, built in the 1850s with a spire added in 1885. It was burned by arson in 2005 and had to be demolished. 

My photograph shows a Wisconsin & Southern train at the same location fifty years later on September 13, 2013. Two locomotives haul 100 empty covered hoppers west toward Prairie du Chien where they will be loaded with sand for use in hydraulic fracturing. The capitol still dominates the skyline; state laws dating back to 1921 limit the height of other buildings in the vicinity.

The second pair of photographs shows the Milwaukee Road’s 1903 depot at West Washington Avenue, half a mile beyond Monona Bay. John Gruber climbed the crossing guard’s tower for his photograph on February 11, 1956, with train 106 preparing to depart for Milwaukee. At the time, the street crossed twelve tracks that saw dozens of train movements everyday—creating a major bottleneck for automobiles. In my drone view from September 24, 2025, a grain train heads east on the one track that remains. The Southwest Commuter Path runs through the former rail yard; the depot now houses Motorless Motion Bicycles and Bandit Tacos and Coffee.