Mid-Continent Railway Museum
NORTH FREEDOM, Wis. — Mid-Continent Railway Museum celebrated its 60th anniversary earlier this year, marking the milestone with special events as well as reminiscences of the Wisconsin museum’s growth from a fledgling museum to one with some 500 volunteer members who share their interest in and knowledge of the “Golden Age of Railroading” with almost 20,000 visitors annually.
The museum’s collection includes more than 100 items, including nine steam locomotives, eight internal-combustion units, and a wealth of rolling stock. Among its diesels is Milwaukee Road Alco RSC2 No. 998, recipient of a donation of almost $95,000 earlier this year from the James T. Baker Jr. Living Trust to aid in its restoration to operation.
The museum established its site in North Freedom — about an hour from Madison and a 2-hour drive from Milwaukee — by purchasing 4.2 miles of track from the Chicago & North Western in 1963. That was the milestone it celebrated with events on May 27, including the operation of two sets of excursion trains.
One, the Lackawanna Express, featured the museum’s regular 55-minute excursion trip with its group of former Delaware, Lackawanna & Western steel coaches. The other, the Copper Range Special, offered a rare chance to ride the museum’s two wooden Copper Range Railroad cars, a coach and combine, built by American Car & Foundry in 1903. Those cars are generally displayed inside the museum’s Coach Shed No. 2, but ran some seven trips that day in their first excursion service in almost a decade.
Museum office manager Jeff Lentz reported some 450 people were on hand for the anniversary celebration, with a total of 847 rides taking place on the two trains.
Speeches by Museum President Andy Spinelli and others opened the day, with longtime member B.G. Miller — who joined the museum in 1967 — recalling that weekend volunteering became a form of competition. “If you showed up here on a Friday afternoon,” Miller said, “you’d sign up in the depot to be trainman, fireman, engineer, whatever. If you weren’t here at 1 or 2 o’clock in the afternoon on Friday, all the spots were filled, so it was a mad scramble to see who could get here first.”
The operation of the Copper Range cars was an appropriate showcase of the wooden-car restoration that has become one of the hallmarks of Mid-Continent. The museum’s car shop — which held an open house in conjunction with the anniversary events and reported signing up several new members — has a number of impressive projects under way. Among them is the restoration of 1902 Duluth South Shore & Atlantic sleeper Duluth, recipient of a $10,000 grant from the John H. Emery Rail Heritage Trust earlier this year. Updates on that and several other restoration projects are available here; information on the ongoing work to restore the museum’s celebrated steam locomotive, Chicago & North Western 4-6-0 No. 1385, to operation to steam, is available here.
The museum is open daily through Labor Day. As of Sept. 9, the museum is open Saturdays and Sundays through Oct. 22; it then reopens Saturdays and Sundays Nov. 25 through Dec. 3 for its Santa Express event. More information is available at the museum website.
If the two old passenger cars are so special why not schedule special event days throughout the season? Perhaps charge a special premium fare and limit frequency of operation based upon advance sales . This could boost attendance and income! . Good luck!