TrolleyTime | From the National Capital Trolley Museum: July 2021

One of our volunteers recently had the opportunity to visit one of the largest railroad museums in the country - the Illinois Railway Museum, in Union, Illinois. The museum has approximately 500 acres of land, of which many are occupied by a diverse collection of hundreds of historic railroad and transit vehicles. Locomotives, steam engines, streetcars, interurban cars and buses are among the different types of vehicles in the museum's collection.

Here's a few images from our visit. We highly recommend a visit to this museum if you are in the Chicago area. More info is available on their website, irm.org. A special thanks to IRM Executive Director Nick Kallas for taking time to show us around.

CAMPUS / "MAIN STREET"

IRM as seen from satellite. Image via Google Maps.

IRM is constructing a 1950s era Main Street scene, complete with an operating trolley and "live" buildings. IRM: "The Illinois Railway Museum is proud to announce the completion of the planning phase for its circa 1958 Midwest Main Street scene. Fundraising for the centerpiece structure has officially commenced and sponsorship opportunities are available. The Entrance Building will be a two-story structure with 36,000 square feet of space featuring dedicated permanent and revolving exhibits, lecture and film presentation halls, educational learning centers, archival storage, offices, and expanded public facilities.
The proposed building will provide the necessary facilities to share our historic collection with the public and to provide the finest in educational treatments. It will include exhibit space, video displays, interpretive movies, lecture rooms, and educational learning centers."

More information about this project is located here: https://www.irm.org/entrancebuilding

EQUIPMENT

These images represent an extraordinarily small fraction of IRM's collection. Information for a selection of the pictured cars is available by clicking the link below the images.