The Great Train Story

The Great Train Story is a 3,500-square-foot (330 m2) HO scale model railroad display located in the Transportation Zone of Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.

It explains the story of modern-day rail transportation in a 2,206-mile (3,550 km) journey from Seattle, Washington, through several plains states en route to Chicago, Illinois.

It featured Santa Fe’s southwestern freight and passenger operations, including a depiction of the Grand Canyon and quickly became a favorite with children and adults visiting the museum.

[2] That summer, the exhibit's surviving items — several original buildings, rolling stock (both used and surplus), and pieces of scale scenery — were placed into forty lots and sold in an eBay auction.

Contributors to the project included General American Transportation Corporation, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Elizabeth Morse Genius Charitable Trust and the Duchossois Family Foundation.

[4] The development team studied visitor interaction with the former layout and designed the new display in a Serpentine shape in order to bring guests into the exhibit to enhance the visual experience.

The display has a number of whimsical scenes including a CowParade, Star Trek's Captain Kirk at the Space Needle, garden gnomes tending part of a forest, a man on a one-way canoe trip approaching a waterfall, and campers encountering skunks and bears.