Chicago Museum of Science and Industry layout

[Carey Williams]

Hello all

If you grew up in Chicago, and had any interest in trains, the Museum of Science and Industry was thee place to go ...the gleaming Burlington Zephyr along the side of the building ( now in the basement ) and of course Minton's masterpiece the Santa Fe layout .... installed in 1941 ( now scrapped and replaced by the evil little HO) . Upon entering the museum , first stop was the layout ... nose pressed against the glass .... till a train came and then chasing it around the layout . From the balcony looking down one would map out how you could condense the layout down to a 4 x8 sheet of plywood at home ...never really worked.

The layout went through several modifications... over it's live ... Minton's taste for vast openness was not fully appreciated by the powers that be so additions and changes occurred ... buildings came, and then were torn down .. yards came and went ..steam was scrapped and diesels ruled the roost, PA's retired to F units ... to SD's ..the end was near ..
2002 plans to scrap the old O scale layout and replace it with a HO layout ...
Many of the buildings were sold through E bay .... in December 2002 ...

I was lucky to purchase two of the buildings this week that had been sold in 2002 ...and sat in the original box shipped from the museum .. stored in a garage .... now will be on my layout .... buildings probably date to the 1951 rebuild period over seen by Bob Smith ? & Bill Lenoir ?
Roof on the truck dock has gone missing ....so a new one will be fabricated .

Cheers Carey
here are a few links to watch the old layout in action during it's later days .






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUrRoZT87P0


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSUDe4_2n0M

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[2railjon]

Carey, thanks for sharing!! That layout was impressive! And the animated equipment was a neat feature! Those buildings you aquired are a nice piece of history!! I’m jealous!!!

[De Bruin]

It's appropriate that you got to snag some of these buildings Carey, congrats. I especially recall that warehouse due to its size; one of the many lasting impressions for me back then about the museum layout was it's sheer size, and how the buildings did not appear crowded in (in stark contrast to my lionel world), apropos to the wide open landscape of the AT&SF the designers intentionally invoked and that made the layout so distinctive. One of the more esoteric details I enjoyed were the recorded narratives on the handsets describing all the innovative virtues of the modern Santa Fe as illustrated "right before your eyes;" perishable traffic facilities, petroleum loading, purpose built diesel shop (large replica of "new " facility in Barstow?) the modern and luxurious passenger fleet etc.

Speaking of which I do recall some of the equipment passing through ebay; it wasn't all at once but in dribs and drabs over at least few years. In retrospect I'd like to know more regarding the provenance of the passenger train equipment. Articles over the past ten or more years regarding the layouts construction and some of the power during the Cronkhite/Smith years have been illuminating but the passenger trains are enigmatic to me, obviously the El Capitan was custom built; what about the rest? I recall they had a Super Chief, Chief, Grand Canyon, maybe one other, back in the sixties.

[stephen neill]

Carey - Neat that you got the buildings; they look really nice.

Santa Fe always wanted the layout to have equipment that reflected what they were using in the "real" world. They turned to Bob Smith to provide the engines (the rolling stock for the most part was available from various companies). Bob had made a diesel for a Santa Fe exec, and then made the PAs.

Bob produced O scale, and Cronkite had done the layout in Q guage (1 3/16ths). Cronkite had moved to California, and Q guage was not a viable option going forward. Santa Fe hired Bob to supervise redoing the layout, using O scale track.

Each time Santa Fe started using new engines they turned to Bob to have them made. With Santa Fe providing money for the initial costs, Bob was able to make newer engines available to the modelers. Keep in mind that there was also a continuing need to repair equipment and provide drives as the layout operated many hours each day. The rolling stock was also kept current with what Santa Fe was using.

I have not specifically researched this point, but apparently after Bob moved to Florida, Santa Fe turned to Bill Pope at All Nation to help with the ongoing maintenance of the layout as they wanted someone in Chicago (the Museum did have a group of employees to run the trains and do routine maintenance}.

They continued to go to Bob Smith for engines.

Steve

[Carey Williams]

Hello all thank you for your kind words . Santa Fe used the layout as a marketing tool .....paying MSI an annual fee for it's up keep....MSI has always been a pay to play type place ( why yes it is in Crook county ) .....so Santa Fe was motivated to keep the layout cutting edge ... and scrap the old dusty items .
This layout could be argued was seen by more people than any other in the world ... north of 100 million + - 1941-2002 ... no doubt spawned more than few train collectors ...(this writer one of them). MSI was a free (admission) museum for decades ..the world's largest baby sitter to the youth of Chicago ..
Initial diesel and Passenger cars were the much worshiped Pomona ...perhaps straight from running at Treasure Island in 1939 on the left coast ? ...early on there was also a heavy weight set of passenger cars ..... 4 trains 2 freight , two passenger .. one diesel , three steam ( Minton built /had built the steamers .all SantaFe ) .... supposedly much of the original rolling stock lives in a closet located within the California RR Museum, Sacramento..also home of yet to be seen NMRA library .....( anyone out there have any pull at the museum to go check out their closets ?...please take a camera ....)

The SantaFe owned the layout till 1990 + - when they donated it to MSI ..their way of saying we are not going to give you any more money thank you ..... Kodak use to provide a huge backdrop of beautiful photograph enlargements that towered over the layout.....changing with the seasons ..( days before multimedia ...and attention spans slightly longer then a nanosecond ....when Kodak stumbled ( no money flowing to MSI ) ...bye bye big photos ..
Onward and upward ..no matter the real direction of travel .

Found out my freight terminal ..was added to the layout in 1965 when the piggy back unloading display was added . Control tower I believe dates back to the Bob Smith 1951 conversion when the hump yard was added .... yes a working hump yard ... when you had trained operator ... who knew what he was doing ... it was impressive ...but then when one is a kid many things are impressive. ...
Here you have a photo from 1955 with Boy Scouts line dancing on the layout ... just in front of the hump yard ... the nasty chemical pant would be replaced by the new "clean" piggy back operation ...... some of the older layout displays were found else where in the museum ... many moons ago ... some of the original displays on the layout were used at the 39/40 NYC World Fair layout ..it's called recycling .
Also cover of MR ..with Pomona SF #11 running on the MSI layout ... March 1941 ...NMRA would have their convention in Chicago that year and yes they all went to MSI to see the choo choo's


Cheers Carey

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[2railjon]

WOW! What a history! Thank you again for sharing!
“Here you have a photo from 1955 with Boy Scouts line dancing on the layout”.
Time flies!! I was born in 1955!

You say Bob Smith made the engines for Santa Fe. Were they hand built one of a kind or did he own a company that produced then en mass?
Inquiring minds need to know!

[stephen neill]

Bob Smith owned Central Locomotive Works (CLW). CLW made brass locomotive kits, mainly diesel, but some steam. Perhaps the best known are the PA/PBs. Santa Fe went to Bob to get models while the "real" ones were still being built. Bob worked from Santa Fe blueprints, and went to Adams & Son to get the cast bodies. Later CLW did them with cast noses and ends and etched sheet metal sides and roofs.

There was a big introductory banquet at the Waldorf (?); The models were there, bob was invited and they knocked a hole in one wall so they could bring a real PA partially into the ballroom (just part of the nose was visible); I saw a picture of it perhaps 25 years ago.

Steve

[2railjon]

Steve, not sure about the hole in the wall, but this was probably it! Thanks for sharing!

[bob turner]

And don't forget - Bob Smith was commissioned by Alco to make the PA models for the Waldorf deal - and he and Winnie were guests.

Hence our doorstop PAs from CLW.

[2railjon]

Bob, so that’s the story behind those doorstops!

[hibar]

The vast openness of the layouts that Minton built I believe were a by product of typical Santa Fe territory and the fact he was working with very large display areas in a limited time frame to get these displays built, none of the original articles on building these layouts mention a lot of help. His layouts were double track ovals for operation purposes and scenery work went a lot faster over these large areas, one of the major areas of construction was in the elaborate signaling and control systems that allowed more than one train to operate over a long oval. I thought that when the original layout was replaced by Bob Smith the locos were acquired by Santa Fe executives as souvenirs. JMO

[milepost57]

http://midnightrailroader.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_27.html
this link provide a good history of the o scale layout and its demise.

[bob turner]

A bit more to the story than that, but not much. The original PAs were plated - Bob was pretty upset by a flaw in the plating until he realized that the red warbonnet would cover the flaw. I do not remember whether it was only an A B, or an A B A.

I am not much of an interviewer. Harmon Monk, Winnie, and Bob had dinner during a Chicago meet a very long time ago, and with his permission I published our conversation in OSN.

[Erik C Lindgren]

So cool guys. Thanks

[Carey Williams]

Hello all ..thanks for adding to the post

Here we have the president of the SantaFe E J Engle kneeing in the Grand Canyon ..and getting finger prints on the Pomona .... taken January 29th 1941 ..just ahead of the big 600 person luncheon as the grand opening of the layout ... ... tables all around the layout ...and in the balcony over looking the layout ...

Also the Central Locomotive Works PA's running a ABA... across the same bridge .....

a set of cast CLW which one day will wear a war bonnet ..my look a like set .... still need some old school drives

and a layout map with locations of the assorted buildings from the 1989 rebuild ..
my control tower , if memory serves ..is #3 in the upper left corner .. a blue and yellow switcher would sit next to it on a siding for years ....the freight terminal is lower right .

Cheers Carey

for some reason the computer like 3 of the photos sideways .....sorry

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