Good evening from the humid south deck in So. Central Wisconsin. We are home and when the breeze blows it’s not too bad out here. The house just got buzzed by a drone and it is not one of ours! A quick mover too that did a turn when it saw me on the deck.
We hit up 2 “Historic” downtown business districts today and drove around and through a third. Mineral Point, Wi. I have already posted some pictures of. Not as hilly as last week’s Galena, Il. experience but it was hilly. The scenery around southwestern Wisconsin is very nice and many hills. MP was also the home of the Mineral Point RR Museum located in the depot I did post 2 exterior pictures of. No photo taking allowed inside and they had an extremely well done HO scale diorama of the railroad around the depot dated in the 1890’s. Definitely some excellent modeling skills by the builders of the diorama. I did check out the Museum website but no pictures of the exhibits there either.
The second stop was Darlington, Wi. a city found along with Argyle, Wi. on one of our scenic “we have to get out of the house“ during the 2 Summers of Covid rides. Much of its historic downtown has lost the “historic” charm as not all the buildings are on the National Historic register which allows remodeling the way the owner wants it and not the the Historical Society. A farming community, I truly believe the grocery, restaurants and bars in town had more ATV and USV’s then cars. I took no pictures of those. They all seemed to be on the wrong side of the sun. I didn’t see any Electric Vehicles
in the 3 towns today. Downtown storefronts here were empty of business in Darlington. IMO a dying town! Still I did get some modeling ideas for some details for the Merchant Row storefront kits.
From the Facebook page of the Toy Train Barn.
The first stop though was for The Train Barn in Argyle, Wi. That is normally open at 10AM but today because of a dentistry appointment it was to open at 11. We were there around 10:30 but I know where it’s at now and it’s about 40 minutes on the backroads from home. The Train Barn from what I read is chock full of model train animations and a 3 rail layout. That’s fine, I love to see trains run. Someday we will get back there. Argyle is a farming community with nothing distinctive about it but the farms along the roads we took were super maintained and seemed really big!
That’s it for Southwestern Wisconsin for us for on the ground exploring for the year 2022. We both know North Central Wisconsin like the back of our hands after 40 years there and 2 kids playing hockey 16 of those years. He same for most of Southeastern Wisconsin where she grew up, we know it very well. We did start in July on the area north of Milwaukee along the shore but between Milwaukee and Green Bay Terry has lots of family and it’s a pleasant but relatively flat scenic tour. We shall see.
Friends in New York State because of family illnesses have told us we can’t visit them for the planned September visits. I have some business in October out East but we would be flying in and nothing for us beats driving the car around. She insists we are doing all stuff Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois and I want to hit up the Gerard Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I want though to drive to Manitowoc, Wi and take the ferry across Lake Michigan to Luddington, Mi. then onto Ann Arbor. The return trip then across the Mackinaw Bridge into the Upper Penisula on US Hwy 2 to Superior, Wi. I want to see the twin ports of Duluth/Superior again but 25+ years after the kids last played hockey games there.
Since I don’t have enough to do at the weathering bench or the layout, I ordered a few things from Walthers since I have been home. From the Proto line I ordered 4 cars, 2-4 bay hoppers and 2-3 bay AMD hoppers. I also ordered Merchant Row #6. I pulled out the lumber for the frame work and decided I have enough 2” pink for a Merchant Row diorama. I will have all 6 kits when it arrives plus 2 duplicates. I want tracks in the middle of the road similar to Winona, Minnesota and La Grange, Kentucky (I think) but it is a LaGrange but not the Texas LaGrange. They have tracks but not sharing of the roadway.
I did decide this week to start collecting for the 3 unit trains I want to build. A covered hopper train of Potash, a 2 bay hopper train of frac sand cars and a auto train. These daily travel through Central Wisconsin on the CN.