Here in my hometown, Butler, WI, we were named "TRAIN TOWN USA"

Interesting article, Mark!  Although it was a long time ago, I too, remember Butler as a railroad town.  I used to live in Milwaukee on 81st St, just north of Burliegh, and I recall listening to the C&NW trains working the yards in Butler.   I'm talking the steam days when there was a little 0-6-0 switcher on the south end of the yards, whistling for the crossing at Burleigh, long before the overpass was built. 

We used to wander out to Butler just to watch the trains and I still have a pair of caboose marker lights that a friend of mine lifted off a caboose there in the yards.  I also remember watching a pair of H16-66 FM diesels idling north out of Butler with a long train.  I was standing on a loading platform on a shop building on 125th St about a mile north of Hampton Ave.  about the time those engines drew along side of me the engineer began to notch them up and they blew out more smoke than any steam engine I had seen! 

Couple of other great memories included watching the "Flying Scotsman" come through there in 1969 and then in 1975, watching the "Daylight" pulling the American Freedom on it's way up to Green Bay.

Great place, Butler, and you have one of the best train shops anywhere right there with Somerfeld's.

Paul Fischer

Congrats to Butler.  I know it well and visited there at least once a week when I lived in Pewaukee and worked at Kalmbach in Waukesha.  The main reason for the visit was Sommerfeld's Trains, of course, and I still enjoy saying "howdy" to Jack Sommerfeld when I see him at York.

Like many others, I used to stand on the Hampton Ave. overpass mentioned in that article and watch the activity down in Butler Yard.