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Your editor made a trip to Illinois in April for a meeting of the Association of Railway Museums (ARM) board of directors, as well as the ARM Spring Conference. The meeting and conference were held at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois. After a long flight to Chicago (via Toronto) and then navigating rush hour out of O’Hare airport in a rental car, it was a 50 mile drive on the Illinois Tollway and then local highway 44 to the Union area.
April 8 was the Board meeting, and a first look at the giant host facility. The Illinois Railway Museum is housed on hundreds of acres of land in rural Illinois, and boasts North America’s largest railway rolling stock collection, more than 400 pieces. But we had work to do, so we persevered in the meeting room of the diner building and worked through ARM’s plans and strategy for the 2005 year.
April 9 was the ARM Spring Conference, and a day to mix looking around the museum with some of the very useful workshops. Topics covered included a meeting of the Education and Interpretation Committee, and workshops to choose from on topics such as Preparing Your Museum Grounds, Inspecting and Repairing Your Rail System, Steaming for Summer, De-Hibernating Your Diesels, and crew training sessions for steam, diesel and electric operations.
The Illinois Railway Museum is massive, with lots of excellent displays. It is almost overwhelming in some ways. Much of the 400 piece collection is yet to be restored, but you
Steam locomotives line up at the Illinois Railway Museum awaiting restoration
can imagine that even a quarter of this collection is larger than ours! Around half the collection is in nine huge barns, making for lots of it to be protected and under cover. I will admit to being quite disappointed, however, as the lack of space between lines of equipment made much of it difficult to appreciate and impossible to photograph. Spacing between tracks and good lighting are imperative to good display and interpretation.
Burlington Route Zephyr E5A #9911A and trainset are used for excursions and dinner train runs on the Illinois Railway Museum’s five mile main line.
But there clearly were some great highlights, and the photos show some of them. Imagine finding a Vancouver Brill trolley coach (#2340) in the trolley bus barn! But there it was, and the trolley bus ride on a 1940’s Chicago was great! The streetcar rides were operating around the site and were quite enjoyable, two cars were available for the ride. But the overall highlight to me was the interurban ride along the five mile demonstration mainline aboard North Shore Lines #160. (photo left)
Green Bay % Western RSD-18 and rare 2-4-2T steam loco #201
This was a classic interurban car, and rolling along at a respectable 40 miles per hour brought back the sights and sounds of riding our BC Electric cars that I can still recall. After the conference, it was time to head back home, but on the way I had time to visit Rochelle Railroad Park. Sponsored by TRAINS Magazine, there is a small park built just for railfans at the busy high speed diamond of the Union Pacific and BNSF mainlines in Rochelle, Illinois. Arriving there, one finds ample parking and a well equipped facility with hobby shop and washrooms. The lookout is up a rise, and features a covered picnic and lookout area with the BNSF mainline on the left, the UP on the right, and the diamond crossing straight ahead.
This is heavy mainline railroading and it isn’t hard to get involved. The radio scanner plays over speakers so you can hear the radio chatter, and grade crossings allow lots of warning that something is coming. I spent two hours there, and recorded ten trains:
- 1030 Westbound UP double stack container train
- 1035 Eastbound UP coal unit train
- 1038 Westbound BNSF double stack containers and auto carriers
- 1047 Westbound UP coal empties
- 1102 Westbound UP coal empties
- 1136 Westbound UP general mixed freight
- 1145 Westbound BNSF Intermodal (trailers) with a Montana Rail Link unit
- 1200 Eastbound BNSF Double Stack containers
- 1230 Westbound UP coal empties
- 1236 Eastbound UP Refrigerated train
There were also lots of interesting people to talk to. The park lookout was well occupied this sunny warm spring day as Railfans and families brought picnics and enjoyed the sights and sounds of mainline railroading as it roared by at frequent intervals.
Thanks to ARM, your editor has discovered many new railway museums and learned much about our field. I would recommend that any WCRA member consider an ARM conference when they come up. They are always reasonably priced and a delight to attend, and we will use these pages to keep you aware of the opportunities.
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