Milwaukee Road - Information request

[mindenjohn]

I'm building a Milwaukee Road route based on Portage, WI and am finding information about Portage difficult to find. The Milwaukee Road magazine "The Milwaukee Railroader" which is the magazine of the MRHA (Milwaukee Road Historical Association) did a spread on Portage in issue #4/1995 (pages 23-26) and a map in issue #1/1987 (page 22) but these are sold out and out of print. Has anyone got access to these and could they please send me copies of the articles?
I can use my imagination based on Google Earth but if I can get it right all to the good. It is my intention to publish here on the RWA and am happy to credit any help received (including the MRHA).
The route will run from East of Columbus to West of Wisconsin Dells (giving 3 Amtrak depots) plus South along the Madison line to just South of the Wisconsin Electric Power Plant, North and East stubs of the Soo Line to Buffalo, WI and MILW to Pardeeville will also be included so there should be Main Line and branch traffic plus switching in the Portage area providing the "entertainment".

[tntrainer]

You might find this helpful. 1938 Historic Aerials.
You may be aware already but for the benefit of those who are not, the great thing about any aerial photograph such as these, they can be overlaid on Google Earth . With the proper amount of tweaking of the photograph size, the old image will lay in the exact position it should be on today's image. This allows you to see exactly where the rail tracks, that have been abandoned or removed, would have run through current development. Additionally, you can import into Google Earth the USGS topographical maps as a kmz file and use those to determine where rail lines operated. Each of these items can be toggled on and off as you need them and once saved in the system will not require any more fiddling. I do want to clarify that this is into the desktop Google Earth program and not the Google Earth overlay inside the train simulator game. When I am route creating, I have the Google Earth program with my maps and pictures open on one monitor while having the route editor with the Google overlay on another monitor.

When I first set out to create my own route, I was inspired to do so by having imported images I didn't even know existed of my grandmother's hometown of Palmer, Tennessee. I had no idea where the long abandoned railroad or the industry tracks at the coal mines ran or looked like. Overlaying one 1950 image gave me the inspiration I needed to get started on my route.

I apologize if you're already aware of the capability of Google in this respect. I wanted to lay it out for anyone who was not aware.

Here's the link to the Historic Aerials for the portage Wisconsin area. Hope this helps with your quest.

https://geodata.wisc.edu/catalog/40085f ... 534fcc9a2a

[mindenjohn]

Thanks TNTrainer.
Portage is actually in Columbia Co. but I was able to work the link. Unfortunately the aerial photos available show only streets nothing near the railway area but worth a try.

[tntrainer]

Whoops, didn't realize it wasn't the same locale. I did find Portage in Columbia county in the historic Aerials.
Of course I don't know exactly what you're looking for but,
On green dot image 16-1318 I believe I see a roundhouse next to a rail yard in the heart of the town of Portage. I can't get the resolution up to where it should be on my phone or what it would be in Google Earth.

[mindenjohn]

Amazingly I have put the turntable very close to the position in the photo 16-1318. I have a few extra tracks to put in and I have to consider the roundhouse, of which I have found a frontal view. It is coming together. Many thanks.

[tntrainer]

Out of curiosity have you added photos to Google Earth as I described? I find it very helpful in route building and was considering doing a tutorial for those who may not know how.

[tntrainer]

Don't know what all your looking for but here's some good info from the 1950's. Lots of business and landowner references.

http://www.historicmapworks.com/Atlas.p ... US&a=10519

Also this from 1890

https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servle ... -County,-W

[tntrainer]

You can tell me to stop if I'm giving you redundant info

Profile Chart 1942: Portage page 88

https://milwaukeeroadarchives.com/Const ... 201942.pdf

Profile Chart 1968: Portage page 127

https://milwaukeeroadarchives.com/Const ... 201968.pdf

Both From
https://milwaukeeroadarchives.com/

[tntrainer]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/333951971800?h ... SwQdhgbzxI

[mindenjohn]

Thanks for these gems. The ebay magazine would possibly be useful but the postage to the UK kills it. I think that from the aerial photo and the 1890 map I can safely position the turntable and roundhouse and that was what I wanted to do. Now onward.