Preservation operations began on a short stretch of electrified trackage in 1966. For Indepedence Day, visitors were offered rides at the 1966 price of fifty cents.
A short stretch of the Aurora Elgin and Fox River Railroad remained in service as a diesel-powered railroad to move coal from an interchange with Illinois Central to the state hospital in South Elgin. The Railway Electric Leasing and Investment Company made a deal with the railroad to operate trolley cars, initially on a very short stretch of electrified track.
Over time, the electrified section got longer, ultimately extending to the south end of track at Coleman under the Illinois Central bridge. Getting the coal delivered was some stunt, get the cars to river level, run around them, move them at river level to where the museum grounds are, then cross the highway and climb up to the level of the state hospital. Somebody in Illinois decided that using coal to heat and power state hospitals was not environmentally friendly, and coal deliveries ended around 1970. The museum operation persisted, becoming enough of a draw to the area that there's now an extension into a forest preserve.
The museum is one of the few preservation railways anywhere with rolling stock originally built for a predecessor line running on home rails.
Several lightweight interurban cars protected Fox River service from the middle 1920s into abandonment. Shaker Heights Rapid Transit purchased the cars. Subsequently, the developer of an upscale mobile home park (yes, there is such a thing) bought a number of interurban cars for use as an intramural railway within the complex. That service might have been more of a draw for train enthusiasts, and the owner's heirs subsequently liquidated the collection, with 304, still in its Shaker Heights colors, returning to the Fox River Lines.
The restoration of other cars has progressed over the years. Shortly before abandonment, a rail enthusiast charter trip used one of the wood cars on the Batavia line. All that remains, railway-wise, at the photo location, is a spur of the Prairie Path.
The museum have been restoring a sister car to something resembling its as-built appearance, and they spotted it for a compare-and-contrast.
For Independence Day, the car was running in multiple with even older car 20, built by Niles, which the Car Department describe as a good example of a car in as-abandoned condition.
Yes, the weather conditions were iffy much of the day, and when an electrical storm rolled in around 2.30 pm, the museum chose the prudent course of getting everything under roof and not risking operations. Before then, though, the old cars did at least one turn for museum guests. No, they weren't let off at the forest preserve for a relief train to retrieve them.
Yes, the skies were threatening, and museum staff had the weather applications working on their devices.
Some years ago, the museum also received a Chicago Aurora and Elgin postwar interurban, 458, from that Cleveland area intramural railway.
The car barn has been extended, and both this car and North Shore Silverliner 756 are now under roof. The 458 has been restored to service. In the summer of 2018, the car was getting a new roof, and the restoration of 316 to as-built condition was under way.
Earlier that summer, miscreants let themselves into the car barn and vandalized several of the cars. That vandalism revealed "structural decay" probably involving windows and sashes that also had to be put right. The car is now a regular in museum rotations, including the Independence Day special runs.
And among the museum's acquisitions, a flag stop semaphore.
No lighting a rolled up newspaper with a match here, pull the chain and raise the arm to horizontal. Conductors took a dim view of passengers releasing the chain and letting the arm crash down.
Although preservation operations were cut short by the foul weather, that was the last major rain event of Independence Day in the State Line, and DeKalb's food trucks, band concert, and fireworks went on mostly as they had drawn it up.
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