PROJECTS. On a recent visit to the Illinois Railway Museum, I had reason to think about the upcoming model-building season. (Classes are back in session, it's getting dark before 8 pm, and we're supposed to be free of the heat and humidity eventually.)

In the back of a bus barn is a Pullman-built trackless trolley, Milwaukee & Suburban's 350, in somewhat rough shape.


A Wisconsin transit enthusiast commissioned a series of models from the St. Petersburg Tram Collection, including the 350 in 7 mm = 1 foot.


There may be a way of engineering a drive system for this, although it was not built with a removable floor. Perhaps a magnet underneath it and a moving magnet underneath a diorama?

Under roof and receiving some attention is the experimental aluminum Chicago streetcar 4001.


Chicagoland Hobby had a series of these built by St. Petersburg in O Scale. The model has a removable floor, and powering it is a possibility. As with the museum, the issue will be budgeting time and money to work on it.


In another barn, Milwaukee Electric parlor car Menominee, which has received a cosmetic restoration.


Walthers made sides for this car, which I used as a steam railroad coach for a while. I have the components to build the parlor car, again, time permitting.


I had a clear view of Milwaukee Electric dump car D13, which has been used in work service at the museum. It came from East Troy, Wisconsin, where it was the spare motive power for the electric freight railroad.


A little fettling, a little gluing? I have the components for the cab interiors. It would be a shame not to put the control and brake stands and a stool in such plain view.


The first Electroliner has been out of revenue service for some time, to receive further mechanical work as well as repairs on the interior. (The museum removed the extra doors Philadelphia Suburban cut into the train, and now has to return the seats to those locations.)


Here's a Locomotive Workshop kit of the Electroliner as built for the North Shore Line.


While I was taking these pictures, it occurred to me that the museum has a number of Layout Design Elements that one could apply to a British-style layout. The movement of cars on the demonstration railroad is end-to-end, making it completely honest to have cars or trains go to the end of a track and reverse direction. Better, most of the operating collection is under roof. One could conceal the fiddle yard in a car barn, and simply shuttle cars back and forth on whatever schedule seems suitable. That most model railroaders have an excess of equipment, some of which is anachronistic to whatever one's principal interests are, makes the creation of a museum-themed layout even more attractive.