Wisconsin Life

The Toy Train Barn all began when Buck was just a young boy. When I was a kid, I started out with an idea of a museum, a toy train museum. I was five years old and I just thought that would be really cool thing to do. So, I just started collecting and gathering and bringing it together to put this together. It's grown a lot. It's really coming along. Coming along is an understatement. I think it's gone over the top.

chuckling

But, that's what I set out to do. It's nice to see it coming together. People come to see it in color and all of it getting completed. How has it evolved over time? Well, there's been a lot of bridges we've gone over. The collecting and gathering, putting it all together and then figuring out where to put it. The barn sees visitors year-round and anyone can interact with the exhibits. Oh, we get lots of visitors. They're all ages and they can push buttons. And we've got a scavenger hunt, an "I Spy" list that you can do. Makes you kind of center in and find the little details in here, which is good. And just spend time looking at all the different new stuff. Buck's sprinkled his newest creations in with the old. This is a really cool layout. It's only about a year old now. I come in and gutted out what was here. And I built a new layout using these old standard-gauge trains from back in the 1930s. They're really big. Fun to have them out and see kids play with 'em. Up above are O gauge trains. I tried to combine the two to get as much as I could out of this barn. I think we did pretty well. There's buttons and controls in here so the kids can come along and hit the button and start these trains all up. Can I start one up? - There's number two. You make 'em go. While Jan still has her favorites. We have a little man in a swimming pool here. He's made with a microwave oven motor and magnets. Oh, that's how he's moving? That's how he's moving around. There's the house on fire down here. Real water and then smoke comes out of it. How is the smoke produced? That's made with a defroster out of a car and you put mineral oil on it and then the smoke will be starting here in a second. And then, that's a windshield washer pump out of a car. That is so creative. Smoke in there, yup. So these were all created. There weren't parts that were already assembled? Nope, Buck's made all this stuff. And his stuff is always made to repair. I mean you can fix it easy, if you need to get to it. Right, especially if you know how it was created 'cause you did it. Makes it easier to repair. I can only call him to repair. Buck's built an entire world in this barn but not without support from his family. If it wasn't for Jan, I couldn't have done any of this. That's a fact. And then my son, he's come along. My daughter, she's been a big help. Dylan, he's an engineer on the railroad and when he has free time, he's got a model railroad here that he works on. And he keeps going 'cause there's never an end.

Angela laughing

You know there's never an end, right?

Right. - Jan

Right!