The Great Train Story facts for kids

The Great Train Story is a super cool model train display at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. It's like a giant miniature world, covering about 3,500 square feet! This amazing exhibit takes you on a pretend train trip across 2,206 miles, all the way from Seattle, Washington, to Chicago, Illinois.

The Great Train Story

The display features 192 tiny, custom-made models of famous buildings and landmarks. You can spot the Willis Tower, the Chicago Board of Trade Building, and Union Station in Chicago. In Seattle, look for the Space Needle, the Experience Music Project, and King Street Station. Between these two big cities, the landscape shows off natural wonders like the Cascade range and Rocky Mountains, with waterfalls and forests. You'll also see tiny towns, tunnels, different kinds of bridges, a lumber mill, farms, grain silos, a fruit packing house, a coal mine, and a steel mill.

In the exhibit, BNSF Railway freight trains move raw materials. Some cars carry lumber, while others are filled with grain and coal. There are also trains carrying big shipping containers and special cars that transport new cars. Passenger trains like Amtrak, Metra, the Chicago Transit Authority’s 'L' trains, and Chicago’s South Shore Line trains also run on the tracks.

A Look Back: Old Train Layouts

The museum had an earlier model train display that started way back in the early 1940s. A person named Minton Cronkhite built the first "Museum and Santa Fe Railway" exhibit. It was a large display, about 2,340 square feet, and used a different size of model trains called O scale. This layout had over 1,000 feet of track!

The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway helped pay for this project. Construction began in 1939, and the exhibit opened to the public in January 1941. Many of the tiny trains and engines were built by hand by Cronkhite himself. It showed how the Santa Fe Railway operated in the southwestern United States, even including a miniature Grand Canyon. This exhibit quickly became a favorite for both kids and adults visiting the museum.

Over the years, the old layout was updated a few times. In 1953, Bob Smith rebuilt parts of it and added more diesel engines. It was updated again in 1988. After many years of daily use, the old train display started to wear out. It was closed in May 2002. Some of the remaining parts, like original buildings and train cars, were sold in an online auction. This auction raised over $21,500 for the museum.

The Current Amazing Layout

The "Great Train Story" display you see today was built with $3.5 million in donations from different groups and families.

How the New Display Was Made

Museum designer John Llewellyn came up with the idea for the current layout. It took a whole year to build and opened on November 22, 2002. Jennifer Johnston, another key person on the team, helped create the 24 information stations around the exhibit. These stations teach visitors about how trains work and safety. To plan the display, Llewellyn and Johnston even took an 11-day train trip from Seattle to Chicago!

The team wanted to make sure visitors could really get into the exhibit. So, they designed the new display in a curvy shape. This helps guests feel like they are part of the train's journey. You can also get a great view of the whole layout from a balcony that goes around it.

How the Trains Operate

The trains in the exhibit use a system called a DC block system. This is a way to control trains on different sections of track. You'll see small signal towers at the start of each section. Also, crossing gates go down at places where roads cross the train tracks. These details make it feel like a real train system.

Fun Interactive Features

There are seven spots around the layout where visitors can make things happen! You can make a Lumberjack chop down a tree, or see a blast for a new mountain tunnel. You can also operate a drawbridge over the Chicago River. Another fun thing is sending a Metra train on its way after it stops at a suburban station.

Up to 34 trains can run at the same time on 17 different tracks. The main line alone is 1,425 feet long! The display also has many funny and surprising scenes hidden within it. Look for a CowParade (cows decorated like art), Star Trek's Captain Kirk near the Space Needle, garden gnomes taking care of a forest, a person on a one-way canoe trip heading towards a waterfall, and campers meeting skunks and bears. When the lights in the exhibit hall dim, the tiny street and building lights on the layout turn on. This happens during demonstrations of the Boeing 727 airplane hanging above the exhibit.

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