Stop back 5 feet

While not really a part of my recent walk through the woods, this relic passenger rail car does have a connection. It’s part of a trolley and railway museum in South Elgin, Illinois. During the late spring and throughout the summer, trolleys run each weekend from the museum to a forest preserve just across the Fox River from Tekakwitha Woods.

This particular car, built in 1953 in St. Louis, was acquired from the San Francisco Municipal Railway in 1982. Good old number 1030 mainly sits rusting on a sidetrack on the museum grounds these days. The “Stop Back 5 Feet” sign on the rear of the car is particularly meaningful in that it was as close as I could come to the car without violating the numerous “No trespassing/Violators will be prosecuted” signs on the museum property, although I’m sure it probably meant something altogether different when it was in service on the streets of San Francisco.

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2006 James Jordan.