I am now 70 years old, but in the mid- 1950's I remember my Dad driving me past some old building that had a trestle affair outside of their building, and a rather large train would run around. Does anyone remember this? If so where was it? I'd like more information.
Old building ? Type of passeneger hauling train ?
Not the North side but....
THe first thing that springs to my mind is Milwaukee Solvay Coal and Coke on E Greenfield Ave across from the coast guard station
There would have been rail operations at the old Milwaukee Electric carbarn at the Fiebrantz car shops on the north side at least into the early 1950s.
I believe the huge railroad tie treatment plant in Granville (far northwest side) had a narrow gauge railway, as did (and do) many tie treatment plants.
In addition to Solvay Coke on the south side that had its own unusual looking steeple cab electric locomotives, the Lakeside Power Plant in St Francis on the south side kept its electric railroad going until the late 1960s, with interchanges to the C&NW and Milwaukee Road lines.
There were also various Kiddyland type areas with small roller coasters and other rides that included small railroads.
Apart from that I am drawing a blank on this one.
Dave Nelson
Great info on the Solvay Co. guys!
They did have some interesting locos:
https://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr058.htm
Mike.
My You Tube
Thanks for the info, I know about Solvay Coke, but this was not a small electric type train that I faintly remember. I can't remember how large the train was either, but it had to be bigger than Lionel type stuff. Since we at one time lived on Melvina near 27th & Capital/A.O. Smith I was assuming this was something my Dad saw more on this side of town.
So, your not talking about a real train, like what was at Solvay Coke, but a garden type layout? like G scale? which is bigger than Lionel stuff.
First thing I thought of:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c6/2d/95/c62d957dc70c4156d2490d37dc441103.jpg
Andy
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Milwaukee native modeling the Milwaukee Road in 1950's Milwaukee.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/196857529@N03/
Oh yea! that was at Capitol Court, IIRC.
Maybe that's what he saw. The OP is scetchy as to what he did see, if it was a full size train, and garden layout, or something like KiddyTown.
Hopefully he'll check back in.
There was something similar south of Milwaukee, perhaps in Racine, which was closer to our house, and my recollection is that it was called Kiddieland, not Kiddietown, but just maybe owned by the same person or persons. But yes they had a train ride, and if memory serves, a sort of boat ride in a circular elevated tank with the boats attached to a central hub. I also recall very small and tired looking ponies. My sister loved the ponies. And I do believe that you could get discounts, maybe even free rides, if you had enough foil and paper disc bottle caps from bottles of milk from a delivering dairy. On the south side that was Huebner's Dairy, and I well remember that in the days before homogenized milk on cold days in our milk chute the cream at the top of a bottle of milk would freeze and push the cap up beyond the top of the bottle.
There was also something similar with rides, but mostly carnival type rides, that would make the rounds of the more marginal shopping center parking lots around Milwaukee but that was in the later 1960s and 70s. They may have had a train as well but more cartoon like, like from Disney's Dumbo cartoon.