I don't think I've ever seen a sales barn modeled in any scale. The tilted ramps for the trucks is a nice detail I well remember as common in sales barns. I can't count the number of times I had to sit through cattle and hog auctions in the sales barns at Oxford, Marengo, Belle Plaine, and Sigourney, Iowa with my grandfather. But I did get some railfanning in on the Rock Island at Marengo, the Milwaukee Road in Sigourney, and the North Western in Bell Plaine. I knew the handwriting was on the wall for The Rock and probably the Milwaukee too, so I look back now and realize how lucky I was to witness all three.? The North Western would send its Falcon Service piggyback trains roaring through the double-track, super-elevated curves in Belle Plaine with three or four SD40-2s in notch 8--probably the most impressive use of SD40s I've ever witnessed. Quite a contrast to The Rock's dog's breakfast of aging, dirty units with dying turbochargers on its Chicago-Omaha main. Or the Milwaukee's antique FM switchers.? ??
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My grandfather used to ship loads of cattle on the Milwaukee out of Williamsburg, Iowa to Chicago. The railroad would let him and other local cattlemen ride in the caboose all the way to the Union Stockyards. Long before my time though.?
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Brian Jackson
Springfield, IL
