Trolleys and Trains

[Robert E. Rathke]

A few days ago I answered  offline some questions about trolleys and
miniature railroads, and though they might be of interest to readers of
this e-mail list:

I rode the miniature railroads at Kennywood and West View Parks many
times.  Both parks had gasoline engine powered trains, although
Kennywood's locomotives were designed to look like bullet-nose steam
locomotives.  My uncle Ray Rathke lived in West View, and after
retirement from the B&O, he was engineer on the miniature train at West
View Park, probably right up to the time the park closed.  The West View
Park train station was near the Dips loading station, and the train
tracks paralleled the roller coaster line, weaving in and out of the Dips
wooden structure on the way out to the end of the roller coaster line at
the fence along Rt. 19.   I spent many days and nights photographing the
10-West View line in 1963-65, including time at the West View Park stops
trying to get the roller coaster and other park buildings in the photos.

Jim Holland mentioned the new PCC trolley line in Kenosha, Wisconsin
which is less than an hour's drive from my home.  I've been to Kenosha
four times in the past two months, but I didn't know about the new
trolley line there.  Ironically, about an hour ago, a friend from Kenosha
stopped by our house, and I asked him about the trolley line.  He knows
all about it, and says they expect to have it running next year.  It is
being built to serve a new lakefront marina being built there, but
construction was delayed because of hazardous wastes that had been buried
at the site years ago.

Last week I visited the Riverside & Great Northern RR at Wisconsin Dells,
Wisconsin.  What's interesting about this 15" gauge railroad is that it
was originally a manufacturing plant for the trains, and its 1-1/4-mile
line was built as a demonstration railroad for prospective amusement
park/zoo customers. It's built on the former Milwaukee Road right of way,
and is parallel to the current Soo Line (Amtrak) route to the Twin
Cities.  The 15" demonstration line and manufacturing facilities were
built in the early 1950's to make live steam trains.  The company
(Sandley Manufacturing Co.) went out of business in the late 70's, but
all of the old shop buildings, roundhouse, 3 turntables, water tower,
two-story station and other structures are still there.  The whole place
was re-opened to tourists in 1990.  It's now operating again,and they run
a couple of steam locomotives and a diesel.  And if you're there at the
right times of the day, you can pace Amtrak's Empire Builder on the
parallel right of way!

Bob Rathke 9/13

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