Even casual passersby pause to admire this beautiful two-story brick and limestone depot built in 1876. Onetime headquarters for the Illinois Central's Northern Division, the 19-room structure featured passenger facilities on the first floor and housed division officials and staff on the upper level.
As times changed, division headquarters were moved elsewhere; passenger service ended in 1939, and the depot closed in 1967. Freight trains used the line into the 1980s. The tracks have since been removed.
As disuse led to disrepair, concerned citizens began efforts to save the historic station. It has been returned to life as the Amboy Depot Museum, filled with railroad memorabilia and local history items.
The telegrapher's office features a variety of telegraph keys, timetables and photos of train wrecks that occurred at Amboy. Original benches grace depot waiting rooms; there are original railroad documents, photos, railroad lanterns, switch keys and a great deal more.
A steam locomotive, a 1920s-era caboose and a century-old IC freight house on the grounds are open to tour.
Sitting at East Main and South East Avenue, the depot is open year-round, 1-4 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday and holidays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Admission is free.
Amboy is about 110 miles from downtown Chicago. For additional information, call 815-857-4700.
What do some servicemen stationed in Iraq do to pass the time? Hobbies! Specifically, model trains! Here, Lt. Patrick Anderson works with some of our HO scale hopper cars. Patrick and a few others in the outfit have also built an operating layout using KATO UNITRACK.And Kato has pictures of it here. (On the lefthand menu of the Web site of the Japanese model railroad manufacturer Kato USA, click on the Customer Photo Gallery and go to the Baghdad Hobby Club at the bottom of Page 2.)
At Grinnell College, trains have been a part of campus life since the school's 1846 founding.
Cargo trains pass through campus, running north and south, two or three times each day, said Dann Hayes, director of media relations. There is another line that runs east to west through the town of Grinnell.
"Because of that, cross trains have to go extra slow, which is a bonus for us," Hayes said.
The trains blast their horns at least two intersections before arriving on campus, giving plenty of warning. To further ensure student safety, procedures to deal with train collisions have been outlined in handbooks that will be distributed in every classroom, office and at every telephone at the school, Hayes said.
"For the most part, I think it's just common sense."
Train depots have plenty of history in Wayne. Karen Armbrust said the first one, known as Dunham Depot, was built in 1850 when one of the village’s founding fathers, Solomon Dunham, wanted a rail line closer to the land he owned.The picture is not on the link but it's a spitting image of the old Revell Small Town station.
The newer, bigger depot that the village is now trying to restore into the museum was built in 1884 and eventually boarded up after the last stops in 1950. A few years later, Karen said, it was moved to the Dunham Castle property by family member Jane Dunham.
Anyone interested in getting involved or seeking more information about the museum project can contact the village at (630) 584-3090.
