President
Sharon Deckard
Vice-President of Operations
Leon Morrow
Secretary
Toni Frei (pro tem)
Treasurer
Leon Morrow (pro tem)
Board of Directors
Toni Frei
William Trent
John Parks, Sr
Jerry Reinman
Dan Philips
Keith Carrigan
Richard Cridlebaugh
Chris Nelson
Members
Dan LaKemper
Howard Dunbar
Pat Dunbar
Erwin Towne
Chris Kuntz
Keith Kuntz
Mel Bopp
Kathy Teigland
Jeffrey Smith
Work with "Operation Life Saver" to educate the public through schools and seminars in railroad safety to protect life and property.
Work with local publishers in developing further published history on the railroads and their participation in developing the area.
Help develop and promote a railroad museum in the Peoria area.
Work with the local tourism and state tourism board to develop more tourist interest in the area by providing a tourist railway attraction that will promote this interest.
Work in conjunction with other tourist attractions in the area to promote the entire area by using the tourist railroad and a connecting hub.
Work with other cities in the area to promote tourist attractions and their connection to the Peoria/Central Illinois area.
Converting the Rock Island Depot at Morton and Bond Streets in Peoria into a railroad museum.
Reconstructing the turntable in front of the depot and along the riverfront to working order and placing a full length dome liner on the turntable.
This dome liner will be converted into a diner.
Placing a Rock Island diesel locomotive immediately in front of the diner, but not on the turntable and converting it into a kitchen car.
The exterior of the locomotive will be restored to as near original as possible. The engine compartment will be completely emptied and converted into a kitchen.
Immediately behind the diner will be a lounge car, where diners will await to be seated in the diner. Only the dome car will rotate slowly giving a full vista of the Illinois River and the diners enjoy their meal. <p><p> The park area adjacent to the proposed museum and diner will have an 18" gauge train running around it for the riding pleasure of visitors to the park, the museum, diner and also to visit other sites along the riverfront.
Also included will be miniature pedal powered bumper cars in the style of steam engines for the 4-years old and under. As they bump each other they will toot and blow smoke just like a real steam engine. <p><p> There will be two or three locomotives, both steam and diesel on display adjacent to the museum.
These will have plaques which will indicate the different parts of a locomotive.
In the museum there will be virtual reality locomotive cabs, where one can step into the engineers seat of a locomotive, diesel or steam, select anyone of several scenes and pulll the throttle. As the scenery goes by the cab will undulate with motion and noise, resembling the actual motion and sound of riding in the locomotive
There will also be a baby bumper nursery, where there will be a child care attendant on duty to watch babies and tiny tots while the parents and older siblings enjoy the museum and outdoor miniature railroad. The enclosure will have soft flooring and stuffed railroad toys for the tiny tots to enjoy.
Many very interesting plans are being made for this museum, which will not be standard in most museums.
There will also be a lot of hands-on exhibits for visitors to enjoy. There will be a model railroad that they can run.
There will be a display of track laying for visitors to try out, and many other hands-on displays.
Also the museum will feature revolving exhibits from other railroad museums.
There will also be a carousel of videos and displays depicting the original railroads that started Peoria.
Peoria was once one of the largest railroad hubs in the entire country.
This page maintained by: Sharon Deckard -
(sha_dec@msn.com)