|
The Great Train Story is a HO scale model railroad display located in the Transportation Zone of Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. It explains the story of modern-day rail transportation in a journey from Seattle, Washington, through several plains states en route to Chicago, Illinois. The layout features 192 custom models of buildings and landmarks including the Willis Tower, Chicago Board of Trade Building, and Union Station in Chicago; and Seattle’s Space Needle, Experience Music Project and King Street Station. The landscape between the two cities includes several natural features such as the Cascade range, Rocky Mountains, waterfalls and forests. Man-made highlights include small towns, tunnels, truss arch and truss bridges, a lumber mill, farms, grain silos, a fruit packing house, a coal mine, and a steel mill. In the exhibit, Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight trains move raw materials with centerbeam lumber cars while hopper cars carry grain and coal. Intermodal cars laden with shipping containers, and car carriers also transport finished products on freight train consists. Passenger operations include Amtrak, the Chicago Transit Authority’s 'L' and Chicago’s Metra Electric Line trains. == Layouts from the past == The museum had an earlier model railroad layout, dating back to the early 1940s when Minton Cronkhite built the original Museum and Santa Fe Railway; a layout in O scale. This layout had over of track and over 20,000 hand-laid ties. The project was financed with a $58,000 grant from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Cronkhite began construction in 1939 and the exhibit made its public debut in January 1941. Much of the rolling stock and locomotives were hand built from scratch by Cronkhite using original Santa Fe plans. It featured Santa Fe’s southwestern freight and passenger operations, including a depiction of the Grand Canyon and quickly became a favorite with children and adults visiting the museum. In 1953 Central Locomotive Works owner Bob Smith rebuilt the layout in O scale and added several diesel locomotives. It was updated again in 1988 during a year-long effort once again financed by Santa Fe. Santa Fe transferred ownership of the layout to the Museum in the early 1990s. Wear and tear from six decades of continuous daily use gradually took its toll, and by the time of its demise the layout had only a couple of operating loops. The Museum and Santa Fe Railway was closed in May 2002.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=The Great Train Story - Past and Present )〕 That summer, the exhibit's surviving items — several original buildings, rolling stock (both used and surplus), and pieces of scale scenery — were placed into forty lots and sold in an eBay auction. The auction generated over $21,500 for MSI. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Great Train Story」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|