1940s MODEL RAILROAD DISPLAY AT THE CHICAGO MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY TRAIN FILM XD86905c

Join this channel to get access to perks: Want to learn more about Periscope Film and get access to exclusive swag? Join us on Patreon. Visit Visit our website Santa Fe presents this film “The Museum and the Santa Fe Railroad“ covering the impressive Santa Fe railway miniature model built by the avid model builder Minton Cronkite and exhibited in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois. This layout was 50-by-60-foot and in O scale. The Santa Fe Railroad (today merged into BNSF) was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport and was the only railroad to run trains from Chicago to California on its own tracks. The railroad wanted to inspire children and adults with its modern, efficient operation, and company brass thought a large model would be a great idea. They hired Minton Cronkhite, an avid model builder who, by the time he was 40 in 1928, had sold a successful business and made enough profit that he could pretty well become a full-time model railroader. He was hired in 1939, and built a model that displayed extreme detail, with functionalities nearly identical to the actual railway including a fully operational “hump yard“. It opened to the public in January, 1941 and became a much beloved exhibit. Unfortunately, time wasn’t kind to Chronkhite’s artful construction. After being on display for decades, the layout became viewed as passe and out-of-date by museum management. Attempts to modernize it after Cronkhite’s death were complicated, costly and generally unsuccessful. After a time in storage (so that a new transportation exhibit could be built complete with a jumbo jet) the layout was badly damaged and not fully operational when put back together. It was eventually decommissioned and components sold off in 2002 as a fundraiser for the museum. “The Museum and Santa Fe Railroad” title banner (00:06). The Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, Illinois founded by Julius Rosenwald (00:16). An overview of the exhibition inside the museum (00:35). The exhibit is a miniature construction of a complete operating railroad system presented by the Santa Fe railroad constructed by Minton Cronkite (00:41). Views of the control board operating the miniature railway (01:01). A museum worker mimicking a courier-nurse sits on the miniature railway system (01:24). Views of the miniature trains riding on the tracks (01:35). The miniature construction includes functioning changing signal lights (02:10), nine steam type locomotives, three diesel type locomotives, 14 passenger cars, and 60 freight cars (02:55), a reconstruction of the railway passing through the Grand Canyon national park (03:07). The miniature locomotives also pass through farmers’ and ranchers’ landscapes with fencings for cattle and other livestock (03:36). It passes citrus fruit tree fields (03:57), cotton fields (04:26), coal, copper, lead, and silver mines in the Southwest (04:38), lumber industrial sights (04:54), and oil industrial sights (05:10). The exhibition also contains miniature models of grain-raising lands (05:38), steel mines (05:35), metal furnaces (06:22), mammoth rolling mills shaping boiler sheets for repairing locomotives (06:46), an excavator digging (07:02), and a pile driver (07:11). Locomotives driving on the miniature tracks (07:24). The model build of shops and roundhouses for railroad maintenance (07:52). A museum worker mimicking a conductor is hooking train cars together (08:29). An overview of the exhibition inside the museum (08:49). “The End” text overlay (08:56). Motion picture films don’t last forever; many have already been lost or destroyed. For almost two decades, we’ve worked to collect, scan and preserve the world as it was captured on 35mm, 16mm and 8mm movies -- including home movies, industrial films, and other non-fiction. If you have endangered films you’d like to have scanned, or wish to donate celluloid to Periscope Film so that we can share them with the world, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us via the weblink below. This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit