I’m from a really small town in the western part of the state. Right across the St. Croix River, about 45 minutes from down town Minneapolis/St. Paul. I live along a UP line that gets about 4-5 trains a day. Usually 2 are the Triple Crown train and then a few of the locals running from the cities to Eau Claire/Altoona yard. I live 3 blocks from the track through town. I can just go down to one of the crossings and watch or up by the high school baseball field is a great wide open space behind a tree line. It was always cool watching the trains go past during a game or practice. Also the fields at one of the parks face the tracks which is pretty cool, but distracting.
I have Hobby Junction in Eau Claire that is a great place to go and pick up stuff. Otherwise it’s just shows up in the cities that I go to.
I also go to school in Winona, MN. Right along the Canadian Pacific main line heading south. My apartment is right next to the tracks and my bedroom window faces the tracks. Who would have thought I would have chosen that room, even if it’s the smallest in the apartment. Down there we have a small hardware store/hobby isle that has some decent stuff.
Go look at the book, Mike Guss is a huge contributor. The cover is a shot of a coal train leaving New Brighton (Not his shot, but its my stomping grounds).
I’m
mostly an armchair modeler now, after most of my HO stuff was stolen
back in '98. I originally started modeling the CNW set in the '60’s,
then switched to WC when they started up. Before the break-in, I had
about 10 WC models(SW’s, SD’s, even the SW-1), some left over CNW, a BN
SD-60, and was working on some model contest entries(D&RG SD-9 and
GP40-2) Got a few model contest certificates(a 2nd and 2 3rds) plus a
photo contest winner(best color prototype and popular vote) for a shot
of 2 GP-40’s and an SDL-39 on Byron Hill in the snow.
Lately
I’ve cut back on my modeling/railfanning due to a promotion at work,
but I get out to check action at Shops(a half mile from my house),
Byron Hill, and occasionally action on the WSOR near my job sites(I
work construction) [8D]
Are you kidding? Man it hot up here! Brewers are doing really good this year. They where the top team for a while. Now there like 4th or 5th.
Also ShopsYardMaster, where did you get your SDL39. Or did you scratch it? I would really like to see a picture of it. Sad to hear that you got robed. Do you still have that Winning picture. I would really like to see it.
No, I didn’t do an SDL-39, but I did do a SW-1 from an old Model
Power unit, and decals from the SOO Line Historical society(#1, the
“Francis J. Wiener”, who happened to be a friend of mine before he
died). The SD45’s, the SW1200’s and a GP35 were stock Athearn blue
boxes with Kadee couplers and additional detail added(and in the case
of the GP35, the dynamic brake blister removed.)
If I can dig up the negative for the GP/SDL pic, I’ll try to scan it and post it.
Hey, so I found out why I haven’t seen the bandit around Tosa this summer.
I was down in the Third Ward today having dinenr with the girlfriend (sadly without my camera) and there on the head of the Jones Island job was the bandit! Now there used to be a SOO hockey stick GP38-2 on this job, and I would hate to see that one get repainted CP as well but thankfully the bandit (a former Milwaukee Road patched GP40-2) is still working and still orange!
So if anyone wants to see it, try looking at either the yard or down at Jones Island, happy hunting!
Yeah don’t count on me. Sadfully I missed a picture of a Bandit at the old Bensenville Yard/Shops. All orange with the black kinda fading sitting infront of the turn table, infront of the old round house ruins.[sigh] I wish my uncle drived normal that day.
Hey guys! I’m a Wisconsin modeler in Wisconsin too. I live in Reedsburg (over near the Dells), at the end of WSOR’s Reedsburg sub. I do a lot of railfanning all over the state, but especially over on the BNSF and CP though too around La Crosse (which, IMHO, is the best railfanning to be had anywhere in the upper midwest between the scenery and trains, although I haven’t seen it all…). I model the WSOR, and I hope at some point to make a model of the Reedsburg sub (although it will probably be a few years from now before I get the space to model it).
I’m also a member of a local model railroad club out of Madison that’s only a few years old. I have a module that I display with the club’s layout at local shows, and I also am working on building a website for us. The club is where I’ve learned a lot of model railroading skills, and I really enjoy it.
MilwaukeeRoad, you’ve got a good chance of seeing a Bandit if you hang around Muskego yard enough. Even though I only get to Milwaukee once or twice a year, I’ve seen a bandit at Muskego two out of the last three times I’ve been there. It seems like there is usually one hanging around the engine facility or deep in the yard. The Viaduct (27th street?), offers a good view of the goings-on in the yard.
And there is a chance you could see the WSOR at Muskego too. They acquired trackage rights on the CP to Chicago via Muskego begining May 9, although as of yet I haven’t heard of anything running down the CP. The restriction though is that the trains can be unit grain trains only, so it will probably be fall before we start seeing to many WSOR trains on the CP (if there ever are).
Hey, Does any one know when the Bensenville Shops got torn down, and why they did? Also, is the Walthers Shop facility (the one that is metal and has all the glass windows) modeled after the Bensenville shops? It looks like it.
Do any of the Wisconsin Modelers know if there are mass produced models of the Griswold Rotating STOP Banner Signals available for those who would like to recreate scenes on the Soo Line’s Wisconsin and Minnesota lines?
I am not sure, im going on July 2nd which is kids day, we usually get some food watch the bands while we eat and then walk around to see what we can find. Were probably going to be there from about 11AM to 3PM so we probably wont see any major band because they usualy play later at night
Walthers is a great store, but not much to look at, it’s not downtown but on the north side in a rather rough part of town.
If you are going to Summerfest and are an Amtrak fan however, go check out the railfanning along the Milwaukee River, viewed best from the Riverwalk on Water Street just a few blocks west of the Summerfest grounds.
There are the Hiawathas and the Empire Builder to watch for as well as CP freight traffic.
Hi from Cameron WI, small town in far west central WI (Barron Co). I’m in the process of building a freelance layout dated in the early 1930’s, my layout is 13 1/2’ by 23’ around the wall shelf with a 6 track staging yard that goes through the wall into my ajoining modeling shop. My local hobby shop (Grampa’s Train Store) is in Rice Lake WI., just up the road, it’s a small store and they will order anything for you that they don’t stock, their prices are right out of the Walters catalog. I’m retired and a transplant from Minnesota and I bleed Purple “Go Vikes” sorry all you Green Bay fellas.