IRM: Exhibit Car: Lanterns and China Collections

20150627 2083

I went with a friend to the Illinois Railway Museum (IRM) and we spent some time in their exhibit car parked behind a caboose next to the main walkway. You enter a compartment that is about a third of the length of the car. On the right is a display concerning the Union Station. On the left is a collection of railroad lanterns.


Then you enter a larger compartment (below). The first half on the right side is about the RPO (Railway Post Office). The remaining three-fourths of the car was devoted to a dining car china collection. Each railroad had their own design on the china they used in their dining cars.

To put the size of the IRM in perspective, the Central Florida Railroad Museum (CFRM) made a big deal about their collection of dining car china and silverware. I did not pay a lot of attention to the china in either museum because I'm more interested in other aspects of railroading, but it struck me that the IRM exhibit was larger than the CFRM exhibit. Yet this rather large china display is a small part of the museum.