Mark's MT Railroads: Illinois Trains 2015 Part One

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Illinois Trains 2015 Part One

At the end of June, we traveled to Illinois to visit family and disassemble my original train layout in my folks' basement. There were also lots of other train-related adventures along the way. Our first encounter was south of Owatonna, MN, where a huge crew is rebuilding the Canadian Pacific tracks. The operation was several miles long, and used a conglomeration of complex and wacky looking machinery to perform most of the tasks.

The next day, we traveled to Kenosha, WI with relatives and rode on their electric streetcar loop. The PCC trolley we rode on, #4610, was decorated in Toronto colors, and was operated with foot pedals. Growing up I rode on the Illinois Railway Museum's CTA PCC car (the "Green Hornet"), which is operated with hand controls. Apparently, the CTA was the only system that used hand controls on these cars, but I didn't know there was another option until I visited Kenosha. Kenosha has several PCC cars in their fleet, each decorated for a different city's electric railroad.

http://www.visitkenosha.com/attractions/top-attractions/electric-streetcar-circulator

Train adventures continued the following day, as we visited Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, IL. They have a narrow gauge railroad that circles much of the park, headed by a blue "steam" locomotive. The open cars provide for easy loading and unloading, and thankfully the weather was beautiful, although rather humid. Locomotive 22 has a #4 builder's plate. At each station, the engineer and fireman would trade off with personnel from the next station. We also rode on several roller coasters which have "trains" and run on track as well.

More on this trip later! Keep your rails shiny ~