Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Excellent progress is being made on the construction on Central & Railroad.  We are anticipating being able to provide service on Bus Day!!!  Our plan is to run 6 different trolley buses throughout the day, with 2 motor buses supplementing that service.  All trips will originate and end at the Andersen Garage - home of the Bus Stop Shop.  Trolley buses will depart Andersen at :00, :15, :30 and :45 past the hour.  If able, motor buses will run trips between those times, so vehicles will alternate between trolley and motor buses with every trip.  Here is our tentative schedule (as always, subject to change due to equipment/road conditions or other factors):  First 4 trips (11:00am - 11:45am) will be Seattle MAN 4020.  The next 4 (12:00pm - 12:45pm) will be Dayton Flyer 925.  1:00pm - 1:45pm will feature Seattle Twin 633.  2:00pm - 2:45pm will be Milwaukee Marmon-Herrington 441.  3:00pm - 3:45pm will see Seattle Gillig 4123, and finally 4:00pm - 4:45pm CTA Marmon-Herrington 9553 will be in service.  The two motor buses providing supplemental service will be Janesville RTS 412 and CMC GM 605.  We will not have set times for them due to condition and other factors.

We also invite private owners of former transit buses to bring them out and display them.  There is no registration required.  If you would like to display your bus, come into the main parking lot and go all the way to the gate at the east end of the entrance drive.  There will be someone near the Wagner loop to assist you to enter and park you bus on the grass just south of the Wagner loop.  These privately owned buses may not be driven around the property nor give rides, but it does give you the opportunity to "show it" to all our Bus Day visitors!!!

Should anything change, an update will be posted on this blog.  Don't forget, no matter what the road conditions, the Bus Stop Shop will be open all day in the Andersen Garage, where you can browse through and buy excess items from our collection.  We hope to see you out on Saturday!!!

As many of you know, construction has started on the streetcar track that will be located down the middle of Main Street, and will eventually become part of the Carline extension.  That project has resulted in the intersection of Central & Railroad being torn up.  Of course that is a part of our Trolley Bus line.  B&G and our contractors are working feverishly to make one lane of that intersection at least passable by Bus Day on 10/01.  At this point, NO GUARANTEE could be given that the line will be able to be used on 10/01, but it looks good for limited operation.  If all goes as we hope, we will operate westbound on Central, turn north on Railroad and around the Wagner Loop.  On the return trip southbound on Railroad, we will hop the trolley poles to the northbound wires and operate back on the "wrong" side until the double wire ends at the used bookstore.

No matter the outcome of the construction issue, we WILL have motor bus operation (as always, based on condition) on 10/01 using the Janesville RTS 412 and the Chicago Motor Coach GM 605, which Vince Allen and John LeBeau were able to get running reliably yesterday (09/24).  We WILL have many of the trolley and motor buses outside the garages, open for inspection and for photos.  We WILL have several trolley and motor buses inside the garages open for inspection.  We WILL have the Bus Stop Shop open for business, selling excess memorabilia from the museum's collection.

As I receive further updates I will post them on this blog.  Thanks to everyone for their questions, inquiries and interest in this event!!!