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Opened at Thanksgiving, 2002, featured in the June and July 2003 Model Railroader, the 3500 square foot Great Train Story layout at the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago is one of the largest in the nation and has featured a new look to its operations since the 2003 Christmas Holiday season...longer trains and more realistic motive power. A 23 car multi-level automobile train just completed four months of non-stop running. Now a 51 car coal unit train is polishing the Atlas code 100 flex track, sharing the two freight track loops with two double stack intermodals, one manifest, an empty unit train and the "green train" honoring the memory of a local modeler. The third loop track hosts Amtrak trains, three usually but a short fourth consist may run tool. With the longer trains, the museum's track capacity is limited by the ten signal blocks on each mainline circuit. MSI's brand of railroading can also be called intense...severe and intense!! During the Museum's extended summer hours the trains ply ten miles per day. And that's not HO scale miles; that's real 5,280 ft. kind of miles. Since the Burlington Northern Santa Fe is a major sponsor, BNSF Heritage II paint is the major paint scheme on the locomotives. Six axle GE and GMLG power most of the trains. The first of dozens of new locomotives were three Kato SD70MACs that by coincidence were kept together during their first months. When their mileage figures were calculated, interest in making an actual trip representative of the distance from Chicago to Seattle developed and the locomotives were then deliberately kept together and except for servicing run every day. The Great Train Story depicts the BNSF journey between those two cities and we use the Amtrak mileage for convenience. Currently the locos have covered over 1642 miles which puts them west of Whitefish, MT. This has happened with 188 days of running since December, 2003. If all goes well, they should "arrive" in Seattle sometime in early September with due pomp and ceremony. David Harrison
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