@RRDOC posted:What a fabulous bike trail! I did it a few years ago. I did the 22 downhill miles with probably the slowest time in history. I stopped to take a couple hundred pictures.
I became a Milwaukee Road fan after seeing the cover story in their 50th Anniversary January 1984 Model Railroader magazine. So when the Hiawatha Trail opened, it was on my bucket list.
The Great Northern has some beautiful engines. I was tempted by the 2-8-8-0 with the green boiler, but I already have engines from too many railroads.
Bob
This same MR issue is what turned me into a Hiawatha Atlantic nut. I was crazily happy when Lionel issued an accurate scale model of it in 2006, followed by Fox Valley Models doing the same in N scale several years later.
The fictional story in that 1984 issue, about a long-lost Hiawatha Atlantic being found in an Iowa field and restored to tour railroads (model railroads in several scales) was compelling and, for me at least, seductive.
Here’s my photo of my Lionel Hiawatha Atlantic running on the Milwaukee Lionel Railroad Club a few years ago.
