Railroading plans for the new year 2020

I haven't made any recent gains on my Flambeau Paper Company Railroad history project.
It has gotten up to 33 pages. John B has more century-old pictures at the Price County Historical Society. That may need a trip to Phillips, Wisconsin, to their library; and I didn't plan anything for that yet.

I just got a used 5 mp slide scanner that I haven't powered up yet; it looks like its 10 years old. I bought it in a new unopened box for $4 from a re-sale store. They also had slide trays and 35m equipment (like I also have had for 40 years, collecting dust after I went digital). We go to estate sales every month and see stuff like that.

I will have to wrap up maintaining the model railroad before Spring. That's on my recent web pages of model topics instead of the real big trains. I have been getting locomotives and rail cars out of storage and getting things cleaned and lubed. For several years, I had put the more delicate models away in a safe place while we were babysitting Porter, but he has grown up and moved on to video games.

A railfan and modeler, Alan S, from Normal IL, wants to see central Wisconsin so he can get some ideas so he can model my part of the state. Does anyone want to help guide him around Point, Rapids, Amherst; so he sees a variety? That might happen in late March or early April, 2020. How about some of the people that watch trains on the Waupaca webcam? They are more experienced than me. We could have a lot of fun and not miss the action with some help. And if there is time, we should visit a model railroad with a central Wisconsin theme. Don K had a nice one with paper mill scenes, but that's gone now. My model railroad won't be 'public ready' until next year, and I loosely model Southwest Wisconsin and Iowa. Contact me at bruce . .. oldn . . 2 n 7 at gm . . . ail dot com and push it all together to make an email address; I give it this way to confuse email harvesters and others. I only check that once a week, so be patient. I am still just getting into facebook rail pages for my area.

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With wamer weather in April, I can move to outdoor projects; such as repairing the sinking concrete steps; and getting back to landscaping and repairing my backyard since last year's blowdown. And I can pick up where I left off with flying a camera from a kite from a boat with a periscope. I have scenes to capture near Biron and Rapids, and have some interesting backwaters to explore. I might return to the Wolf River and Gills Landing to get aerial pictures of the drawbridge. I haven't been there in (?) 7 years. If I knew when they would open it, that would be really interesting. I could almost 'dare' someone to phone in that they have a big enough boat to make it worth opening that draw bridge. Do they test run it in the Springtime? I could also get to the two trestles in the old backwater streams east of there. Does anyone have a power boat on that stretch of the Wolf River? Getting to the trestles is a long ways. My little boat is electric and limited to 4 miles range. But it can glide in 4 inches of water. It's laughable that I sit in my little boat with my little trolling motor, and a 20 foot fishing boat comes near to inspect my little craft, and then races away upstream at 30 mph with their 80 hp motor. It has been 22 years since I have had the electric motor on my Big Red bicycle. One motor came from war surplus, and even though it is heavy, it was cheap and rugged. I also have Roy Pannannen's bike motor (an uncased 3-speed trolling motor) that would be a good match. Roy shipped it to me when he got too old to ride, a year before he passed away, and that was about 20 years ago.

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I saw in print that there's rail news that CanDo (the Trackmobile service) will take over rail switching duties at Nine Dragons paper mill in Biron. Which means I am way behind in keeping up with rail news on the internet. That location is also a topic for a fresh kite aerial picture; last Autumn's trip had potential but too high of a river flow to enjoy it.

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I have had plans to build a kite, a low wind Pearson Roller. I can't buy inexpensive versions of what I want, China doen't make the models that they used to. But I do have a sewing machine and some fabric and some plans from the Internet. I haven't flown the little quad copter lately, I think the batteries are losing life. (that's why people fly kites, because the wind is free) I won't buy another better quad, such as GPS capable, until I lose what I have. We will go to the Fireside Theatre this year to see Cinderella, a classic. We don't have any other travel plans for any 'long' distances. Nothing longer than a day of traveling. Yet, we will still be very busy.

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