MON AM News: Return trip: Southeastern Wisconsin rail plan comes back as MARK; WCMP report sheds light on manufacturing trends going into 2026

January 5, 2026

— A new effort to connect Milwaukee to Racine and Kenosha by train would take the “commuter” out of commuter rail and keep going all the way to Chicago.

The seemingly defunct KRM plan has been resurrected with a new name, a new approach and a new governing structure, borrowing from the playbook that western Wisconsin rail advocates are using to push for passenger trains linking Eau Claire to the Twin Cities.

Before it was dismantled by the Republican-led Legislature, the former Southeastern Regional Transit Authority was planning the KRM (for Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee) route as a commuter rail line from Kenosha to Racine and downtown Milwaukee, with stops in five other communities and on Milwaukee’s south side. Passengers would have been able to transfer to the Chicago area’s Metra commuter trains at Kenosha, now the northernmost Metra station.

By contrast, the new MARK Rail Commission is focusing on an intercity passenger rail line with downtown stations in Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha and Chicago. Other stops in Wisconsin or Illinois might be considered as well, said Milwaukee Ald. Bob Bauman, the commission’s secretary-treasurer.

While commuter rail systems like Metra can serve numerous communities and neighborhoods within a metropolitan area, intercity rail lines like Amtrak’s Chicago-to-Milwaukee Hiawatha stop at fewer stations and travel longer distances at higher speeds. Between downtown Milwaukee and downtown Chicago, the Hiawatha stops at Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport, Sturtevant and Glenview, Illinois, bypassing Racine and Kenosha.

Bauman said he expected the MARK trains would “compete very successfully” against the Hiawatha, particularly for passengers interested in intermediate destinations.

He added the Hiawatha would likely remain the preferred option for travel between downtown Milwaukee and downtown Chicago.

Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari replied, “We’re not going to speculate on a plan that has not been produced.” He noted that a later stage of the federally required study process would flesh out details on stations, speed and frequency of trips, which would determine whether the MARK service would be classified as intercity or commuter rail.

The Chippewa-St. Croix Rail Commission also is looking at intercity passenger rail for the Eau Claire-Twin Cities route, with intermediate stops in Hudson, Menomonie and other communities.

While Amtrak runs almost all intercity passenger rail lines in the U.S., both the MARK (Milwaukee Area-Racine-Kenosha) and Chippewa-St. Croix commissions are open to other operators.

Bauman strongly favors Metra for MARK rail. Metra has agreed to assist in planning and coordination for the southeastern Wisconsin route, but that deal neither commits Metra to operate the service nor rules it out.

See the full story.

— While more Wisconsin manufacturers say they’re optimistic about the state’s business climate and economic trajectory, workforce concerns remain top-of-mind going into 2026.

That’s according to the latest Wisconsin Manufacturing Report from the Wisconsin Center for Manufacturing & Productivity, its fifth annual look at top trends and the path ahead for the industry. The report includes data from 405 manufacturer interviews and four focus groups held around the state.

WCMP Executive Director and CEO Buckley Brinkman notes the state’s $72 billion manufacturing industry is the single largest contributor to Wisconsin’s economic output. That means issues affecting the sector “ripple through” the rest of the state economy, he wrote in the report.

“Manufacturers face ongoing worker shortages, supply chain disruptions, uncertain prices, and the impact of new technologies — including AI — on their businesses,” he wrote. “It’s a chaotic time with few obvious answers.”

Still, he added manufacturers are prepared to invest in growth, “provided they have some clarity about how those investments will pay off.”

When asked about Wisconsin’s business climate, 65% of manufacturers said it’s headed in the right direction, while 25% said it’s going in the wrong direction and 10% had no opinion.

That marks an improvement from last year’s report, which found 47% said the state’s business climate was headed in the right direction, 31% said wrong and 22% had no opinion. In the year before that, those percentages were 51%, 35% and 14%, respectively.

More respondents also said the state economy is growing at 32%, up from 23% in the last two reports. Authors note that’s the highest it’s been since 2021. And fewer manufacturers believe the state is currently in a recession at 6%, compared to 12% in the last two reports.

At the same time, the report found a slight increase in manufacturers’ confidence about their financial outlook, rising from 85% to 90%.

Still, the challenge of finding qualified employees ranked highest among manufacturers’ concerns, with 51% of respondents calling it extremely important or nearly so. That was followed by keeping qualified employees at 49%, the cost of materials at 45% and the cost of health care at 41%.

Tariffs and inflation were also named as some of the most important issues affecting manufacturing success.

Meanwhile, the report also highlights a spike in the perceived importance of automation, with 72% of manufacturers saying it will be important going forward. In the last four years, that percentage had only risen from 61% to 64%.

And while fewer manufacturers now say AI won’t have much of an impact on their operations — 30% versus 51% in 2023 — a much smaller share say the technology will fundamentally change their businesses. That percentage has crept up to 8% from 5% in 2023. The majority say AI will simply be another piece of technology among many, rising to 61% from 40% over the last two years.

See the report.

— SHINE Technologies has completed the acquisition of the SPECT nuclear medicine business from Massachusetts-based Lantheus, the Janesville company announced.

The deal includes a manufacturing facility in Massachusetts as well as the company’s portfolio of diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals, according to details released Friday.

The SPECT site has been producing a product called TechneLite for 55 years, providing hospitals and imaging centers with the self-contained technetium-99m generator. Tc-99m is a radioactive isotope that’s widely used in diagnostic imaging. Along with the production facility in North Ballerica, Mass., the SPECT portfolio includes various imaging agents that are used in millions of procedures each year.

SHINE is currently developing its Chrysalis facility in Janesville, which it says will become the largest isotope production facility in the world. The newly acquired SPECT business will use several isotopes that will be made there, including molybdenum-99, a “parent” isotope that decays into the Tc-99m used in imaging.

Greg Piefer, founder and CEO of SHINE, says the nuclear medicine supply chain should be “modernized” to keep up with the needs of patients.

“We’re building that now, bringing new technology to bear across both diagnostic and therapeutic markets,” he said in a statement on the acquisition. “This strengthens the entire isotope supply ecosystem and positions SHINE to deliver the reliability healthcare depends on.”

The company on Friday also announced Michael Rossi has been tapped to lead the SPECT business as CEO, touting his more than 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry.

Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

See the release.

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