I'm planning a 4-day trip to Chicago over the holidays and wanted to see if people had recommendations for train or industrial-related museums / sites worth seeing either in Chicago or nearby areas (Milwaukee, Gary, etc.). I've been to Union Station, Museum of Science and Industry and the Illinois Railroad Museum and am really looking for things you wouldn't necessarily find in a standard guide book like small industrial museums (e.g., something on the Chicago stockyards or Gary's steel industry would be great). Anyway, all suggestions are welcome and appreciated. Thanks.
Brad
Last year during the Christmas holidays there was a large layout set up in the ground floor of the John Hancock building. I was there just a while before it opened. Don't know if they're doing it this year. I had a post about it, but did a search for the old post and came up blank.
This is more MRR realted, but the Elmhurst Model Railroad Club has open houses on Fridays & Sundays: http://www.emrrc.org/events.html
I'm sure the chicago historical society has information about the stock yards, it would be a worth a trip to see, also the main gate to the stock yards still stands at the original entrance. The neighborhood is a little dicey though. If you have a rental car, the gary mills are a short drive down the skyway, from which you can get a good glimpse of the heavily industrialized south side. And if you get off at 106th, go north on indianapolis blvd to 95th, take a left and you can go over the blues brothers bridge:). There are lots of industrial sites around there with rail activity but no real "museums" that i know of and i live and work in the area.
Dale