Stay up to date on the latest happenings on the Fox River Line with the latest issue of the Electric Times! See a recap of our all-new Santa’s Trolley Express, a preview for the Bunny Train, an update on our restorations and car barn work, and more!
Category: Museum News
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2025 Year In Review
It is not possible to overstate how big a year 2025 was for us. Between construction in the car barn, restorations, and everything in operations, this was a momentous year. Before we jump into 2026, let’s take a moment to look back on everything that happened this year.
Thank you to everyone who made this happen, from our car department who keeps our trains running, to our operations department who runs the trains and puts on all our events, to our museum services department who maintain the crucial connection between our museum and the public, to the most important ones of all: you, our visitors, who show up with your smiling faces every day we’re open and experience a unique slice of history.
Car Barn Extension
Of course the signature happening this year on everyone’s mind was the barn extension. With an all-volunteer workforce, we were able to add storage space for three more cars and a concrete floor, completing the project on time and on budget. Thanks to their efforts, we have more indoor storage space to protect our historic cars from the elements and our Restoration Dream Team can restore and maintain our collection better than ever before.
As if to outdo themselves, as soon as the dust had settled on the extension, the car department announced that they were beginning another extension to the south, to be completed during 2026.
(Re)acquisition of Rio De Janiero 1719
In our early days as a museum, we leased Rio De Janiero streetcar 1719 from Wendell Dillinger and ran it on our rails. Eventually, Mr. Dillinger was able to establish his own railroad and ran it there for several decades in Pennsylvania, ending 1719’s days running along the Fox River. After Mr. Dillinger’s passing in 2024, he willed his railroad to its employees, and through a broker we were able to purchase the car outright and return it to our rails. The car is in need of restoration, but thanks to our car barn extension, we have the space to do it, and hope to carry passengers in an open-sided car on hot summer days.
316 Restoration
After years of hard work, our Restoration Dream Team has brought CA&E 316 back to life after years out of service. This is one of the oldest and most beautiful cars in our collection, dating all the way back to 1913 (well over a century!) Complete with stained glass windows and a marble floor in the washroom, this is a beauty not to be missed!
Soo 117 Restoration
While all eyes were on 316, we also were able to restore Soo Line caboose 117 back to its original paint scheme. When it arrived on our property just two years ago, it was in a dark green livery with its windows painted over, dating from its days as a shoving platform after cabooses had been all but removed from service on freight lines. This year, thanks to the hard work of our Restoration Dream Team, we have restored it to its original beautiful white and red livery that it proudly wore trailing freight trains across the prairie.
Reimagined Members Day
Members Day has been a tradition of our museum for many decades, but this year we made it extra special, including the dedication of our car barn expansion and CA&E car 316, model railroads on display in the barn, rare nighttime trolley runs, and re-creating a historic photo. Over 100 people came out to witness our historic preservation, the best we have seen in many years.
Vintage Voltage Limited
For the first time in many years, we ran a joint fundraiser with the CTA involving an hours-long charter all over the city in a pair of 6000 series railcars that first carried passengers above the streets of Chicago in 1959. Nearly 80 passengers were able to experience vintage rapid transit cars on their home rails, taking in the skyscrapers of downtown, the State Street Subway, the Linden Yard Tunnel, and many other parts of the Chicago L system including a few not normally experienced by typical Chicago commuters.
Santa’s Trolley Express
To close out the year, we ran a revamped version of our beloved holiday train: Santa’s Trolley Express. Complete with hot chocolate, Christmas carol sing-alongs, visits from Santa, Mrs. Claus, and plenty of elves, storytelling, and reindeer humor, this beloved event instantly became a holiday classic for all the visiting families.
45 Cosmetic Restoration
Underpinning the success of Santa’s Trolley Express was the heated waiting area in CTA car 45. This was made possible by yet another project from our extremely prolific Restoration Dream Team, restoring the appearance of the car inside and out to how it looked when it carried passengers above the streets of Chicago. While more work remains to be done underneath to allow it to move under its own power, we can once again proudly display it.
Looking Ahead
We are never ones to rest on our laurels, and we have an even bigger year planned for 2026. Be prepared for:
- A second car barn extension to the south
- Air conditioning in the Wayne Depot
- Operations on Saturday and Sunday all season for the first time in the museum’s history
- All Aboard sensory friendly days
- Caboose train running more often
- Several new special events
- North Shore Line 715 turning 100 years old
- …and more!
With all of that, have a happy new year, and we will see you in the spring!
Check out the latest issue of our museum newsletter, the Electric Times. Read all about the success of Rails to Victory, continued work on the car barn, more progress on restorations, and more!
Check out the latest issue of our museum newsletter, the Electric Times! A lot has been happening lately, including a car acquisition, continued work on our car barn extension, repair works on our equipment, and more.
Categories
2024 Year in Review
As we get ready for 2025, it certainly has been an exciting year. It’s hard to believe so much happened in just a short time.
Without further ado, let’s jump right in and list out all the big things that happened this year:
Route 31 construction
Of course the most memorable thing for all of us this year was the construction on Route 31 just north of us. For most of the operating season, our museum was inaccessible from the north due to the rebuilding of a culvert under Route 31. However, visitors were not deterred and we still saw many smiling faces on our trains, braving all the detours.
Car barn extension
In order to support the efforts of our car department in their award winning restorations, we started a project to expand the barn to fit three more cars. Work is ongoing, but we have made major progress, and we can’t wait to unveil our new and improved barn next year.
CA&E 316 restoration
We aren’t quite done yet, but we have made a lot of progress on restoring CA&E car 316. The car department has been working tirelessly to give a companion to car CA&E 458, which was restored in 2022. It won’t be long before we can have two generations of cars from the Great Third Rail.
Updated car roster and QR codes
Thanks to the work of Kathleen Jamieson, Joe Hazinski, and Jacob Goldberg, we were able to get up to date descriptions on the website for every single car in our collection so everyone can learn about our cars and their fascinating histories. Each car has its own story to tell, and thanks to the work of our dedicated team we can ensure that story is preserved and accessible to all.
To make it even easier to learn about our cars, we mounted QR codes pointing to the info pages for each car, enabling our visitors to info about every car right from their phones.
New website and mailing list
At the start of our season, we migrated our website from WildApricot onto WordPress to help us modernize our web presence. We also set up a mailing list so everyone can be kept up to date about everything we have going on and never miss a chance to attend one of our special events.
More changes are coming in 2025, so stay tuned!
New board and officers
After 40 years, our president Ed Konecki and vice president Fred Lonnes decided not to seek re-election and helped bring the next generation of museum leadership on board. We now welcome in Ben Rohling as our president, backed by a board consisting of himself, Doug Rundell, Patrick Storm, James Tarbet, and Chris Nelson.
Restoration of baggage cart and tunnel ash cars
Thanks to the restoration efforts of Ron Ruhl and his family, we have added a former Chicago Tunnel Company ash car and two baggage carts as static displays, adding a bit more variety to our collection and showcasing a lesser-known piece of Chicago railroad history to the public.
Trivia Trolley and Night Trolley
We expanded our special event offerings this year with the Trivia Trolley and Night Trolley, with both events being very well received. We are always looking for ideas for new special events, so please let us know if you have any!
All-new Friday runs of the Polar Express
After the popularity of the Polar Express Premier last year, we brought it back this year and expanded it by offering Friday runs to allow even more families to experience Christmas cheer in a vintage trolley.
Record-setting ticket sales for the Ghost Story Train
We absolutely smashed the post-2020 record for Ghost Story Train ticket sales, selling over 80% of the tickets, with our previous record being about 65%. We look forward to continuing this success next year with all of the events we have planned.
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Memorial for Jon Duerr
The Fox River Trolley museum mourns the passing of Jon Duerr, who died peacefully in his home on February 13.
Mr. Duerr was an accomplished biologist, who started his career teaching biology at Waubonsee Community College and joined the Kane County Forest Preserve District in 1985 serving nearly 20 years as assistant superintendent, superintendent, director of field services, and executive director until his retirement in 2004. During Mr. Duerr’s tenure with the Kane County Forest Preserve district, he oversaw many advancements, including more than doubling the space under its protection.
Mr. Duerr also holds a dear spot in the heart of our museum. It is thanks to him that we were able to complete the Blackhawk extension in June 2002. He saw an opportunity to enhance the experience in the forest preserve that would eventually come to bear his name by allowing us to extend our tracks into it, allowing a unique experience of riding a vintage trolley through it. Starting in 1999 we worked with him to find the best route to extend our line, and with his love of nature he picked a route through the forest preserve to allow passengers to see its natural beauty. Thanks to his working with us, riders at our museum are able to continue past Coleman Grove, the original end of the line at the museum, all the while allowing riders to see the forest preserve from the train.
A celebration of Mr. Duerr’s life was held in the Jon Duerr Forest Preserve near Blackhawk Station a few weeks ago on May 18. To help honor him, we offered complimentary trolley rides to those who came to pay their respects so that they could see a piece of his legacy. His memory will live on in our museum through the gratitude of all of our volunteers and passengers.
Photo credit: Isaiah Irlbacker