New Joliet Railroad Museum opening Friday after 10 years in the planning

The long-awaited Joliet Railroad Museum opens this weekend.

Joliet City Planner Jayne Bernhard highlighted the opening of the museum Monday when giving the City Council a report on historic preservation efforts in the city.

“2023 was a big year for the Historic Preservation Commission,” Bernhard told the council. “2024 is shaping up that way as well.”

One of the big events of 2024 is the opening of the railroad museum to the public Friday.

The railroad museum has been in the works in some fashion since 2014, Bernhard said.

Berhnard is the city liaison to the Historic Preservation Commission and has been involved with the Joliet Area Historical Museum in the creation of the railroad museum.

The museum opens to the public for the first time Friday and will maintain hours of 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

There has not been a lot of fanfare for the first weekend. Website visitors will be hard-pressed to find specific information about museum hours and admission charges. But Bernhard said the Joliet Area Historical Museum expects to have those details on its website by Thursday.

Admission will be $5 for the public or free to members of the Joliet Area Historical Museum.

The Joliet Area Historical Museum will operate the railroad museum, which is on property owned by the city.

The railroad museum is located in the old Union Depot Tower, where railroad workers manually operated controls to switch rails used by trains traveling through downtown Joliet before that work was moved to a remote location through new technology.

But the old control panels have been preserved, and the museum has added informational panels and other features to tell the story of Joliet’s railroad past.

The Union Depot Tower was preserved during the construction of the Joliet Gateway Center, the modern depot through which rail passengers now pass on their way to catch Metra and Amtrak trains. It is located on the east side of the railroad tracks across from the old Union Station, which is now leased for commercial business.