La Crosse’s railway display at Copeland Park brings together three distinct parts of railroad work: a powerful passenger locomotive, a crew’s caboose and a signal tower. The collection is cared for by the 4000 Foundation, established in 1989 to preserve and restore the site. Its relatively compact scale makes it easy to connect the objects with one another. They explain not simply what a train looked like, but how it was powered, staffed and directed through a busy railway landscape.
The best-known exhibit is Chicago, Burlington & Quincy locomotive No. 4000, originally built by Baldwin in 1930 as No. 3002. Later modernization included streamlining and the name Aeolus, a reference to the keeper of the winds in Greek mythology. Railway crews gave it a less formal nickname, Big Alice the Goon, after a Popeye comic-strip character. It served as backup power for the Burlington’s new Zephyr passenger trains, a fascinating example of a steam engine working alongside the arrival of streamlined diesel-era travel.
The Milwaukee Road wooden caboose offers a different timescale. Built in 1883, it later served as a drover’s caboose for people accompanying livestock shipments. The Grand Crossing tower adds the operating intelligence behind the trains. Built in 1928 to replace a structure destroyed in a wreck, it controlled a crossing used by several railroads. After closure in 1991, preservation work brought it to the park. Its survival helps make visible the human decisions and mechanical systems that railway travelers seldom saw.
The foundation’s annual Rail Fair has traditionally provided special access and demonstrations, including the locomotive whistle, telegraph activity and interpretation of the tower and caboose. Those are event features, not a guarantee on an ordinary park visit. Even from outside, compare the three exhibits: the engine’s machinery, the caboose’s working accommodation and the tower’s view over the tracks represent complementary jobs. Together they preserve a fuller picture of railway life than a locomotive standing alone could provide.
Visitor information
Researched November 2026.
Sources
More railroad museums in Wisconsin
- National Railroad Museum — Ashwaubenon / Green Bay: Major railroad museum and research collection
- Colfax Railroad Museum — Colfax: Railroad museum and equipment collection
- Fennimore Railroad Historical Society Museum — Fennimore: Railroad and local history museum
- Mid-Continent Railway Museum — North Freedom: Railroad museum and operating collection
- Railroad Memories Museum — Spooner: Depot and railroad artifact museum
- All 6 railroad museums and sites in Wisconsin
Keep exploring
- All heritage sites — museums, stations and landmarks
- Midwest — the trains you can ride in the region