SwingingTheLamp

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/31405145

I can see the WSOR trains go by a couple of times a day from my office window. There's a routine: Send a locomotive out to the west side to pick up the consist of hopper cars, take them out to the east to get filled with gravel or crushed stone, then take them out to the west, often with tanker cars added to the train. Once in a while, they take a train of full lumber cars west.

Today, I happened to look out and see something completely novel: C&NW steam locomotive #1385 on its flatbed, pulled by a WSOR diesel. The Mid-Continent Railway museum is finishing up a years-long restoration of #1385, and it's on its way back to North Freedom.

I am kind of embarrassed to admit how delighted I am to see it, and all of the love the volunteers have lavished on it. I remember seeing #1385 under full steam, pulling the circus train back in the day, so it holds a fond place in my childhood memories.

There's a homecoming celebration at the museum this Saturday, and I just had to share.

I can see the WSOR trains go by a couple of times a day from my office window. There's a routine: Send a locomotive out to the west side to pick up the consist of hopper cars, take them out to the east to get filled with gravel or crushed stone, then take them out to the west, often with tanker cars added to the train. Once in a while, they take a train of full lumber cars west.

Today, I happened to look out and see something completely novel: C&NW steam locomotive #1385 on its flatbed, pulled by a WSOR diesel. The Mid-Continent Railway museum is finishing up a years-long restoration of #1385, and it's on its way back to North Freedom.

I am kind of embarrassed to admit how delighted I am to see it, and all of the love the volunteers have lavished on it. I remember seeing #1385 under full steam, pulling the circus train back in the day, so it holds a fond place in my childhood memories.

There's a homecoming celebration at the museum this Saturday, and I just had to share.

No, I wasn't stoned. This thought was inspired by the post the other day about how trees evolved independently (e: multiple times) from different plants, the product of convergent evolution.

A little background information, as I've recounted a few times on Lemmy: Back in the '90s, UW-Madison professor Joel Rogers co-founded an aspirational new political party—creatively named the New Party—that tried to revive fusion voting. They endorsed a Democratic candidate for the Minnesota House in 1994, and the Minnesota DFL objected. They took the case to the Supreme Court, which upheld the ban on fusion voting. The New Party lost momentum and fell apart soon afterwards. Progressive Dane, based in Madison, is the only remaining New Party affiliate.

It's not surprising to see the Wisconsin Republican Party objecting to the practice; it will be interesting to see what the Wisconsin Democratic Party thinks. (I recently learned from the Wikipedia page on fusion voting that the Republicans and Democrats used to run fusion candidates to defeat socialists in Milwaukee.)

I wish United Wisconsin all the luck.

I'm very glad to hear that this wasn't a targeted attack, it was just another instance of routine traffic violence that kills hundreds of people daily. That means that I don't have to care about the victims. I don't have to learn their names, or their stories, or see their faces splashed across the news as tragic, sainted victims of a destructive ideology. They're just more roadkill to be tossed anonymously on the heap of bodies. Thank goodness! There's a lot going on in the world lately, and the last thing I need is more terrorism victims to wring my hands about. I just don't have the time or the energy.

(/satire, I hope obviously)

The partial veto that the Wisconsin governor can do is ridiculous. But it was ridiculous back when Tommy Thompson was doing it, too. If Republicans can use it, so can Democrats.

In a sliver of good news for today, Michael Gableman faces consequences.

I guess that every election now will have a referendum to amend the state constitution for funsies. Let's add Chapter 1 of the statutes—Sovereignty and Jurisdiction of the State—since that seems pretty important. Maybe the state symbols? I mean, nothing's more patriotic than the American Robin. Let's get the lyrics to "On, Wisconsin!" in there, too. That, and the 2025 Green Bay Packers schedule definitely should be in the constitution, and we can add 2026 next year.

Now that it's an open ledger, what other random crap should we put into our foundational document?

This was peak Internet back in the day.

The 2024 State Street Pedestrian Mall project was popular and led to increased activity on that stretch of State Street during the summer months, according to a report on the experiment(opens in a new window) adopted by the Common Council during its March 25, 2025, meeting. The first year of this experiment is leading City staff to evaluate a longer-term program while keeping or bringing back some of the elements of last year’s experiment.

We have several city alder elections, as well as the state supreme court race.

This past week, I saw a car near the stadium with a vanity plate with this on it, and I can't stop wondering about the backstory. I guess it could be a sports player or fan referring to the 4th OT in a game. If it's supposed to read "forethought," the owner probably could have used some. Anyway, I guess the censors at WisDOT aren't clued into, or don't care about, Millennial slang.