I never knew until I found this that C&NW had a small Narrow Gauge Network in Southwestern Wisconsin. It explains some things on the Wisconsin rail map. Back in the 1880's and 1890's Wisconsin had a huge Zinc and Lead mining region in the Southwest of the State. The former Milwaukee Road stop of Milton, WI was quite a large and sprawling town at the time and almost over took Milwaukee in population at one point. Another item I learned is the Scottish or Welsh "Pasty" was imported and used for lunch a lot because it was encased in a crust and you could eat it without utinsels which was important to miners at the time because they could not wash their hands in a lot of cases before eating lunch and they did not want the lead or zinc residue on the pasty so they would wrap it in paper and peel back the paper exposing the crust and eat it that way (story I was told).
They still serve Pasty's around Milton, WI and I see they serve them in the UP as well and if you would like to try one you can Google for a place in the UP that will make them fresh and mail them to you. They are pretty good.
Anyhow, back to the story I had long wondered with all the lead and zinc mines what happened to the rail network in Southwestern Wisconsin, turns out most of it was abandoned before I was born or in my early very childhood.
Anyway here is the link. You can Google "The Dinky" and see some former history of the ex-C&NW Narrow Gauge lines.
http://www.badgersteamandgas.com/Railroad/Narrow.pdf
I am somewhat familiar with the Thunder Lake Narrow Gage in Wisconsin, but also very interested in the industrial history of the Copper Country in Upper Michigan on the Keweenaw Peninsula. There were a lot of railroads up there, and there are lots of mining ruins out in the deep forest.
Trains had a nice article about the C&NW Wisconsin narrow gauge operations back about 1970. I think it was entitled "The Ridge Runner". I've still got my copy stowed away somewhere. Some of the lines were standard gauged while other segments were abandoned. They rostered a small collection of 4-4-0 and 2-6-0 engines. Cute!
While the linked article said that the Robbins RR was the last common carrier narrow gauge in the midwest when it was abandoned in 1941, the Quincy & Torch Lake, which by that time had lost its common carrier status, lasted until 1945. Even then the RR remained intact for a number of years. Still some of the ore cars and a couple of engines remain on Quincy Mine property, Hanccok, MI.
Any post allegeing that standard gauge is based on Roman Chariots should be removed and the poster banned forever. Enough is enough.
Sounds like somebody's 4th-of-July cookout got rained on!
For anyone interested, there's a book on the Northwestern's narrow gauge.
One place it's available is Amazon.
Why Wisconsin is called the Badger State
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=693
Mineral Point std. gauge trackage
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Content.aspx?dsNav=Ro:60,N:4294963828-4294955414&dsNavOnly=Ntk:All%7clead+mines+and+mining%7c3%7c,N:1136&dsRecordDetails=R:IM111971
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-026/
tdmidget Any post allegeing that standard gauge is based on Roman Chariots should be removed and the poster banned forever. Enough is enough.
I saw that but not being able to screen it out from the rest of the info, I left it.
Also, you do need to be more tolerant here of diverse opinions. I worked the city I live in here in TX, North of Dallas and there are some local railfans advising the city of it's history and they do not all have their facts straight. For example I had this one guy tell me the Houston and Texas Central railway never had wood burning locomotives even though it laid rail in the early 1870's..........all it's locomotives were oil burners, right from the start. Is that something worth arguing over? He said it was because Texas doesn't have much wood (which told me he has never driven through East Texas or looked at the map of the H&TC), whatever. Some things are worth getting upset over and others you can leave to common sense folks to sort out........avoiding the confrontation.
Gramp Why Wisconsin is called the Badger State http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=693 Mineral Point std. gauge trackage http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Content.aspx?dsNav=Ro:60,N:4294963828-4294955414&dsNavOnly=Ntk:All%7clead+mines+and+mining%7c3%7c,N:1136&dsRecordDetails=R:IM111971 http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/tp-026/
I've been to Mineral Point on a University of Wisconsin sponsored tour. The old pictures of Mineral Point make it look like Gary, Ind or Pittsburgh, PA with all the smelters and plants. Today however all that is gone and the community has shrunk in size down to just a pretty small town. The old CM&StP Freight house is pretty large and was still standing though and it's size seems out of place until you see the old pictures of how large Milton used to be.
Gramp For anyone interested, there's a book on the Northwestern's narrow gauge. One place it's available is Amazon. The Dinky: C&NW Narrow Gauge In Wisconsin Jan 1, 1993 by Gregg Condon, Robert Felton and James Nickoll
Going to order it just to learn more. Allegedly there was a large horseshoe curve on this line that prevented it from being standard gauged cheaply because of the surrounding landscape so C&NW made the decision to keep it narrow gauged because traffic was slowly declining on it and possibly also C&NW saw the declines of the lead and zinc mining activity.
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