FIND YOURSELF A PRESERVATION RAILROAD AND TAKE THE KIDS TO IT.

Chicago Parent recommends the Fox River Trolley Museum in South Elgin.

Edward Konecki, president of the 58-year-old Fox River Trolley Museum, says families will find passionate volunteers eager to share the stories of how trolleys helped make the America we now know all while helping them experience the simple joys of travel before cars.

“It’s a great place for families because everybody can be involved, no matter what the age, whether they are 3 years old or whether they are 70 years old,” Konecki says. “I like to say we’re still living in the time of the trolley. We’re preserving a piece of history that created America as it is today.”

Here are a few suggestions for sneaking enrichment activities into the day.

• Ask lots of questions and remember, no question is too simple or complex. “One of the things that’s really valuable, the train crews are there to share with you their love of the museum and they’re excited to tell you about it,” he says.

• Listen to the stories of the people involved with the trolleys that are ripe to fuel everyone’s imaginations of days gone by, he says.

• Pick up scavenger hunt sheets at the museum and make it a game among your family to find all the items on the sheet. The collection includes dozens of trolleys and streetcars from Aurora, Elgin and Fox River Electric Company, Chicago Transit Authority and even a caboose built in 1887. Peek into the restoration shop to see how volunteers are restoring the trolleys by hand. They’ll pause in their work to answer questions, he says.

• Pack a picnic lunch and depart the trolley at the forest preserve to explore the preserve’s biking and hiking trails, see the 8-foot-high natural waterfall and discover the carved statue of Native American leader, Black Hawk, at the entrance to the Forest Preserve. Black Hawk, namesake of the Black Hawk War of 1832, worked to preserve the way of life of his people. There is also a historical memorial for unknown Army soldiers who died there in the war.

I was not aware, after all those years visiting the place, of that war memorial. The museum is due for a return visit in any event.

The article correctly notes that the museum's collection includes some very old rolling stock.  Roarin' Elgin car 20, which appears in the article, could be the oldest active electric railroad car in the country.  In addition, the museum, which uses the trackage of the former Aurora Elgin and Fox River interurban, is one of the few preservation railroads of any kind with an electric car running in preservation on the same rails it was originally delivered to.  Be careful, though, to wrap up your visit to the forest preserve in time to catch the last car back to the museum grounds.