WAYNE, Ill. — It isn’t every day 100-year-old railcars emerge from a museum to travel on the U.S. rail network, but that’s what is happening this weekend, as the only preserved motor and trailer from Illinois Central’s 1926 commuter electrification departed from the Illinois Railway Museum today (Saturday, June 27).
The vintage equipment, nicknamed “Wickerliners” for the fabric on their walkover seating, is heading back to its birthplace, as well as its one-time home rails. It will be the star attraction at the Pullman National Historical Park’s annual Railroad Days event July 25-26 [see “Alstom to sponsor…,“ Trains.com, June 23, 2026]. Metra is also planning a separate commemoration of the electrification’s 100th anniversary next month.
Thanks to regular maintenance, interiors and exteriors of the Pullman-built cars appear exactly as they did when the IC donated the cars to the Illinois Railway Museum in 1972.
Wayne was one of several stops where the equipment’s friction bearings were inspected and lubricated to stave off overheating. Saturday’s move took the IC cars from the museum at Union, Ill., to Metra’s former Milwaukee Road Western Avenue yard in Chicago. Bracketed by F40PH-3 No. 105 and Metra’s Chicago & North Western heritage unit, F49PHI No. 90, the train was limited to about 20 mph on Union Pacific’s ex-C&NW Belvidere Subdivision.
The train, which also included stainless steel gallery cars to accommodate UP, Metra, and IRM maintenance personnel and officials, was reportedly allowed to attain 30 mph on UP’s Geneva Sub to Tower A-2 at Western Avenue in Chicago, where Metra took over…