Advice sought on rail travel in the US

When I lived in Chicago in the late '50s, the guide through the sub was the German who had been captain of it - he emigrated from Germany to the US after the war.

Just an interesting bit of trivia :-).

D'oh! Make that *east*. Saluda Rd, mile or south of Hwy 10, at a vehicle entrance.

-- Kizhe

The S&I Museum used to have a coal mine exhibit, you got to ride in the little coal cars as part of the tour.

The 'mine' was still there about a year ago. You climb up on a headframe, get in an elevator, and descend (two stories) into the mine (basement), where you can see what the inside of a mine looks like . It's all a mock-up, but sort of neat.

There's lots of things to see and do at the Science and Industry museum. The emphasis is for grade-shool kids, but there's lots to interest most adults to. The exact selection of displays keeps changing as they are in almost continual revison. They've greatly improved the U-505 submarine display, and the Pioneer Zephyr, but the huge ship model collection they used to have has mostly disappeared (I asked, and even the staff didn't know what had happened to it).

Dan Mitchell ============

Back in the early 60s the headframe winch was part of the operating display. Whistles would toot their signals, and the operator would work some levers and the cable would whip off the drum to drop the cage deep into the mine (those two stories). Another set of whistles, and he'd wind it back up again. I don't know when that part of the display went static, but it used to be fun to watch.

Sounds like it's all still there, as both of us describe. By 'elevator' I meant the mine cage (effectively the same thing in this display). I didn't take the ride when I was there last year, but the whistles were still working!

Dan Mitchell ============

"Daniel A. Mitchell" wrote in news:EcL7f.1014$ snipped-for-privacy@news.itd.umich.edu:

That mine exhibit has been around for a LONG time. I remember seeing it when I was a Cub Scout, 50 years ago. Aout ten years ago I saw it again when I took my teenage son to the museum. It was just as impressive as I remembered it from all those years ago. One bit of trickery that I remember is that elevator/mine hoist. Physically it only drops you two floors, but it moves very slowly. To give the illusion of sped and distance, the walls visible through the cage are a scroll that moves raipdly in the opposite direction to the travel of the cage.

I was greatly disappointed on that last trip because the fabulous model train exhibit I remembered from my Cub days was closed to the public while it was being refurbished. I remember it as an enormous O guage layout with many trains running around a replica of the Chicago area. I have not idea what it looks like today.

The old 1930's (?) O-gauge layout is completely gone. It had fallen into incrasing disrepair, and usually was not operable any more. In many visits to the museum between about 1960 and today, I only saw it run once. Usually it looked terrible.

It's recently been replaced with a modern HO layout, somewhat larger in total size than the old layout. It depicts scenes from across the whole USA ... rather ambitious to say the least, even in so large a layout. Oddly perhaps, considering it's scope, it's fairly well done, with recognizable scenes in some areas. There are a few dumb things too, but it's *FAR* better than most display layouts.

Star of the scenes is a model of Chicago (what else in the S&I Museum), with many recognizable buildings. Things are compressed, but not nearly so much so as on the average home layout. The city is IMPRESSIVE!

The standard of the modelwork varies, and is not 'contest quality' in most cases, but is considerably better than most home layouts. That's saying something considering the HUGE size of this layout. It's presentable at it's worst, and some areas are downright fine.

It's definitely worth a look if you're in the area ... not to mention the MANY other things to see in the museum.

Dan Mitchell ============

Went there last year, and it's definitely worth a look. Here, have a preview:

-- Kizhe