Museum and Santa Fe Railroad Model
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https://digital.library.illinois.edu/items/d30d97e0-0d92-0135-23f6-0050569601ca-5
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Descriptive Information
| Title | Museum and Santa Fe Railroad Model |
| Description | The Museum and Santa Fe Railroad exhibit consists of 1,200 feet of track running through a 3,000 square-foot landscape representing, the Great Plains, the Arizona desert and Grand Canyon, and California. Sprawled across the model landscape are a suburban village, an elevated highway, a commercial grain elevator, a cement factory, an oil field and refinery, an orange grove, a mountain tunnel, two bridges, and numerous industrial buildings. The Alvarado Hotel and the Hopi Hotel which dot the top of the canyon plateau are based on hotels built by architect Mary Colter (1869-1958.) The model railroad is fifty feet wide by sixty feet long. The track is 1-1/4 inch O-gauge. Each train is pulled by a diesel locomotive with up to fifteen cars. Fifteen homes and buildings have working electricity. |
| Interpretation | Designed by electrical engineer and model railroad enthusiast Minton Cronkhite, the Museum and Santa Fe Railroad exhibit opened in 1941. It is one of the largest and most complete model train displays in the world. It was designed to illustrate the role of the railroad in shaping the American economy and to demonstrate the interplay of transportation and industry. The model railroad has been updated over the years to keep pace with the rapidly evolving railway industry. Since the installation of a modern computerized train dispatch tower in 1989, visitors have the opportunity to play the role of train dispatchers as they chart the progress of specific trains on the miniature electronic layout. The current exhibit will close in May 2002. A new model railroad exhibit will open in November 2002. |
| Lesson Plans / Themes | How We Learn About Communities |
| Learning Standards | |
| Author or Creator | Cronkhite, Minton |
| Other Contributors | Atchinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Company |
| Source | Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, Accession file #40.262 |
| Subject / Keywords | |
| Temporal Coverage | 1940 |
| Collection Publisher | Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago |
| Rights | Copyright Not Evaluated |
| Resource Identifier | 40.262 |
| Date Created | 37487 |
| Collection Title | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community) |
| Collection | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community) |
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Museum and Santa Fe Railroad Model |