Like so many modelers I received a train set as a kid, which grew and grew with every Christmas and birthday, but lacked any real purpose, something always seemed missing.

Then Railroad Model Craftsman ran their “The V&O Story” in the 70’s and I was hooked.  Here was a model railroad with a purpose and that made sense to me.  After that, I set about creating my own freelanced railroad. In the late 70’s I accompanied a group of people on a railfan trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and during that trip I got hooked on iron ore railroading.

I struggled with several locations in the “Yoopee” for my railroad before deciding that I could twist history a bit and pretend that the prototype Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic was acquired by a group of private investors instead of the Canadian Pacific and with that I had my railroad.

But what to name it?  The Wisconsin & Michigan, a long abandoned shortline was the logical choice, but another member of the Wisconsin Valley club was already using that.  Several choices came and went when another member of the club would ask someone to give the bench work a “wump” to jog his train back into action.  Another member ran with that and suggested the name to be the Wisconsin & Upper Michigan Peninsula Railroad, aka, the “WUMP”.  I didn’t care for that name, but shortening it to just Wisconsin & Upper Michigan seemed just right.

Starting a career in the railroad industry, marriage, children and moving kept the first two versions of the W&UM from getting anywhere close to operation, but I was able to do a lot of research on the area around Marquette and finally settled on September 1982 as my era.  The fall in the Yoopee is a beautiful time of year and the CNW moved their remaining Alco fleet to Green Bay in 1982 giving the greatest variety of power including a few models that were soon retired.

Most of my professional career was spent on shortlines or regional railroads so the 450 miles of the DSS&A main was perfect to model the type of railroading I was used to.

As a sidebar, while I never really developed a history past 1982, an introduction to Greg McComas (via my son Matt who runs Circus City Decals) has led to a friendship and the development of a story line where the W&UM becomes a member of MacRail in the present day.

A final move back to Baraboo and a new, empty basement provided the third version of the W&UM a home for over 25 years and I hosted 74 operating sessions during that time.

When we built our house, my wife and I decided on an area of 26x32 for the railroad, with a line that would not be crossed.  Since then, the line has been crossed to house a 10-foot ore dock, my work bench and the Dispatchers office.  The crew lounge, er, family room, remains intact for family functions.

I became involved with the Riverrail group in LaCrosse over a decade ago and was exposed to a number of excellent operating railroads, most of which were double deck.  I began to see the shortfalls of the then current railroad and in July 2024, right after our National Riverrail Invitational, the W&UM ran its last session and came down, but fret not, a new double deck version is well underway way and will be running by June 2026!