Thomasburg travelogue
As we crossed Damon Road by its commercial district, Clyde chuckled at a scene unfolding there: “Ellis Radio is a Lionel model trains dealer, and the truck out front is there making a deliv- ery of some new products. Officer Jim of the city police department is a model railroader and has parked his cruiser there to check the new arrivals. That man on the steps of the next building is the local ‘mad scientist,’ Mike Muckerheide. Mark my words, one day he will make us all proud.”
The small Damon Yard held U&I bridge crew and m.o.w. supplies and empties for the nearby Valley Portland Cement Company. Clyde explained that the massive construction projects of 1955 were keeping the cement com- pany very busy, and the U&I had con- verted some open hoppers into a fleet of covered hoppers to meet the demand. We passed the usual fuel and coal deal-
Downtown Thomasburg is busy, but there is still time for the beat cop to eat his doughnut (above). In the background is the scratchbuilt Kostinuk Caustic building. Below, the tour group detrained at the café for a Norwegian meal, paying no attention to the mechanics work- ing on an old Ford. Opposite,the tour train headed back across the river and home. .
ers, storage warehouses, and the large Monarch Foods warehouse, also a source of provisions for the city. Riverside Salvage Company was busy with freight car scrapping, and Clyde pointed out a derelict steam loco- motive on its siding, consigned there for scrapping, but the owners just did- n’t have the heart. We returned to Ole & Lena’s, where the train parked on a siding out of the way of ongoing switch- ing, and we entered for a dinner of “gourmet Norwegian food.’ 44
After dinner the train returned us to the yard for views of the typewriter fac- tory and RIP track and dropped us at the platform to board the sleeper Patricia, parked there waiting to be picked up by our through train to take us home.
It had been a busy couple of days. Shortly after my head hit the pillow in my berth, the rhythmic song of the jointed rail beneath me and the rocking of the car lulled me to sleep. As I drift- ed off I realized that perhaps I had ex-
perienced a “celestial” close encounter of the “infinitely utopian kind.” It was, indeed, a pleasant trip.
This story takes place on Tom Burg’s O scale Utopia & Infinity Railway in Merrill, Wisconsin. If Tom and his rail- road seem familiar it’s because his lay- out was featured in Kalmbach’s Great Model Railroads 2011 issue. Since his teenage years Tom modeled in HO scale, building a series of layouts, but an O scale experience set the stage for a future change of scales. Over 25 FEBRUARY 2012
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