Easter Bunny, Illinois Railway Museum make season debut Saturday

A day after a winter storm snarled some Easter events in McHenry County, the Illinois Railway Museum in Union had its opening day Saturday for the kickoff to its Bunny Trolley Hop event.

Marcus Ruef, one of the vice presidents at the museum, said Saturday was the first day the museum was open to the public. “It’s been going very well,” Ruef said.

While the weather forced the postponement of an Easter egg hunt Saturday in Spring Grove and another Sunday in McHenry, the Easter egg hunt at the museum was moved indoors. Ruef said the lawn where the Easter egg hunt would have taken place was “frozen over.”

In addition to an Easter egg hunts, the museum ran a trolley on a 1-mile loop around the campus that was decked out with Easter decorations. An old North Shore Line train car from the 1920s that was not decorated for the occasion took visitors onto some tracks that went closer to Union and then southeast toward Huntley. To the north of those tracks lie those the Metra line to Rockford would use when service begins.

Matt Holtz, a volunteer at the museum who was the motorman for the Easter-themed trolley, said there was a good turnout at the event and the weather “held up pretty well.”

Also at the Easter event Saturday was an old Metra car where most of the benches had been removed and the inside set up with brightly-colored decorations and a background. In front of the background, the Easter Bunny didn’t talk but gave thumbs-ups, high-fives, waves and hugs to all who came to visit.

Some children were eager to see the bunny, others less so.

“She’s very excited [to see the Easter bunny] this year,” Katie Morgan said of her daughter, Margot Kalinowski-Morgan, 2. “She’s been talking about it all week.”

The Trolley Hop has two more dates for the season, Sunday, March 24, and Saturday, March 30. Tickets cost $20 and available at irm.org.