Monticello Railway Museum

Monticello Railway Museum

A museum tourist train, being led by Wabash Railroad F7A #1189, rests in front of the Nelson's Crossing depot.
Reporting mark	MRMZ(Temporary equipment transfers/loans)
Locale	Monticello, Piatt County, Central Illinois
Dates of operation	1966 (1966)–Present
Track gauge	4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Length	15 mi (24 km)
Headquarters	Monticello, Illinois

The Monticello Railway Museum (initialized MRYM, reporting mark MRMZ) is a non-profit railroad museum located in Monticello, Illinois, about 18 miles west of Champaign, IL. It is home to over 100 pieces of railroad equipment, including several restored diesel locomotives and cars.

The museum offers a tourist railroad which operates excursion trains over a former railroad line that was owned by Illinois Terminal and Illinois Central Gulf. For a donation, guests can operate one of the locomotives during the "Throttle Time" program. Trains run May through October and on holidays. Visit the museums website for the latest information.

The Camp Creek yard was originally built by the museum's volunteers. The Terminal Division is a re-built Illinois Terminal right-of-way running from Camp Creek up to Blacker's towards White Heath. The Central Division was purchased by the museum from the Illinois Central. The Central Division purchase allowed the museum to enter into downtown Monticello to the historic Wabash Railroad depot and is the mainline of the museum's heritage railroad. The Central Division is currently being restored up to White Heath to allow occasional operation into that town. Only a short section of the Terminal Division is currently in use from the central switch down past Nelson's Crossing depot into Camp Creek yard, but has been restored to within a few miles of White Heath.

The Monticello Railway Museum is located off Interstate 72 at Market St. Exit 166. Turn at the stoplight onto Iron Horse Place at the Best Western Gateway Inn, and follow the frontage road to the end. 25 minutes from Champaign and Decatur. 50 minutes from Bloomington.

The Monticello Railway Museum, a not-for-profit educational organization, was founded in 1966 as "SPUR, Inc" (Society for the Perpetuation of Unretired Railfans, Inc). Its original goal was to encourage the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad to continue operating its steam-powered railfan excurions. When that effort failed, the organization decided to operate its own steam-powered excursions and began a search for equipment and a suitable location. SPUR contacted the Illinois Central Railroad about operating on the West end of ICRR's lightly used Rantoul District between LeRoy and Sabina, Illinois. For such an operation, ICRR would require SPUR's equipment to be in "ICC condition" and use the railroad's union train crews. SPUR concluded this would be prohibitively expensive for the organization and continued its search. In 1966, SPUR was invited to Monticello, Illinois by a member of the Illinois Pioneer Heritage Center and moved its first piece of equipment, locomotive #1, a 1925 Alco 0-4-0T, to a vacant lot near the Heritage Center in Monticello. The organization's name was changed in 1970 to the Monticello & Sangamon Valley Railway Historical Society, Inc., and then shortened in 1982 to the present day Monticello Railway Museum.