History

The Illinois Railway Museum was founded in 1953 by ten men who each contributed $100 to purchase Indiana Railroad 65, an interurban car that had just been retired and was in imminent danger of being scrapped. The museum’s origins, however, actually go back further.

In 1907 the Elgin & Belvidere Electric Railway, controlled by electric railway engineering expert Bion J. Arnold, opened for business. It was an electric interurban line paralleling the Chicago & North Western Railroad between the two cities in its name. One of its claims to fame was that it built the world’s first fully automatic substation in the town of Union. The E&B continued in operation until 1930, when automobile competition and the onset of the Depression drove it into bankruptcy. The tracks were torn up soon thereafter and the interurban cars were scrapped.

When IRM was founded in 1953 it was sited on the grounds of the Chicago Hardware Foundry in suburban North Chicago, along the tracks of the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee interurban line. It was initially known as the Illinois Electric Railway Museum but the “Electric” was removed in 1962. Following acquisition of car 65 the collection continued to grow, reaching some 40 pieces of equipment by 1964. By that time the museum had outgrown its cramped space at the foundry and it relocated to an empty field east of Union. The reason this site was chosen was because the long-abandoned right-of-way of the E&B could be cheaply acquired simply by paying the back taxes. Initially a mile and a half of right-of-way and a small 26-acre plot where the depot now sits were purchased. The collection of 40 pieces of equipment was transported to Union in 1964.

Over the 60 years since, IRM has expanded steadily. The first electric car operated in 1966 and the first steam engine ran in 1968. The depot was moved from its original location in nearby Marengo in 1967, the first of 13 storage barns was built in 1972, and the streetcar loop was completed in 1981. Visitor amenities were improved with the opening of the Central Diner in 2003, the Schroeder Store in 2017, and the Multi-Purpose Building in 2021. The collection of historic equipment has grown over tenfold, to over 500 pieces of historic railway and transit equipment. The size of the developed property has expanded to 100 acres while the main line railroad has been extended to include nearly five miles of the former E&B right-of-way. Nearly four miles worth of track are now under cover, providing protected storage for the vast majority of the historic collection of trains.

Today

The Illinois Railway Museum is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization which is owned entirely by its volunteers. The museum receives no state or federal money for its operations. All capital and operating costs are paid by individual donations and revenue derived from tickets and on-site sales.

The lifeblood of the museum is its volunteers. All train operation and the vast majority of restoration work done on the historic collection is performed by volunteers. The museum welcomes anyone, 18 years or older, who is interested in trains or history, or is looking for a hobby or a place they can make a difference. Most of the volunteers at IRM are not professional railroaders; the museum counts men and women who are electricians, lawyers, teachers, construction workers, doctors, and members of many other professions among its volunteer ranks.

The museum is organized into a number of departments, nearly all of them led by a volunteer curator. These departments include equipment departments, such as Electric Car, Steam, Diesel, and so on; facilities departments, such as Buildings & Grounds, Track & Signal, and Overhead Line; education-oriented departments, such as Libraries and Exhibits; and the Operating Department, which oversees actual train operations. Volunteers perform work in one or more departments which is overseen by that department’s curator, with two General Managers overseeing the activities of the department curators. The General Managers report directly to the museum’s Board of Directors, which is elected from the ranks of working volunteers.

The museum’s management and workers are united in a shared vision: to work towards the goals set out in the museum’s mission statement and to make the Illinois Railway Museum the premier rail history organization in America.