If you grew up and loved eating special dinners at the trains at Vonachen’s Junction, later named Vonachen’s Old Place, you need to get out to Wheel’s O’ Time Museum, right now. Well, read this blog post first, then get in your car and get over there!
The reason for this urgency is that they’ve refurbished two of the original train cars from Vonachen’s Old Place!
There’s a dining car and business car refurbished back to their original state, plus there’s original menus, matches, swizzle sticks and a photo of Pete Vonachen from 1958 in a train conductor’s cap!
Just scroll on down and check out the photos. And then get yourself over there and soak up this nostalgic Peoria experience!
Here we are at Wheels O’ Time Museum just off of Knoxville as you head into Dunlap, Illinois.
Let’s go inside and see what’s happening!
Here’s the front room where you buy your tickets to enter the museum.
That’s Laura and Marcia behind the front desk and they confirmed the fact that the Vonachen’s train cars have been refurbished to their original state. We’ll take a quick gander inside before we go see those train cars.
This entrance leads to…
The antique car display that started off Wheels O’ Time years ago.
I always love to see this antique Packard car donated by the Ralph Coletta family.
I’m friends with Ralph’s sons, Joe and Bob and I remember this car from back in high school and I’ve actually ridden in it when Ralph would take it out for a spin and let us ride along! I always love to see this and it brings back such great memories!
There’s so many buildings out here and they all have so many fun displays and things to look at. You could spend days here and not see everything on display out here!
Like this Incredible Lego Village on display.
I’ll come back and report more on this, but today we’re here for…
The refurbished Vonachen’s Old Place train cars.
They’re outside the museum of course and be sure to make like Elvis Costello and watch your step as you walk the stairs on to the train cars!
Okay, here’s the first Vonachen’s Old Place train car…
The Danville Car.
This was a dining car and you can read all about it on this informational display that also has vintage photos.
Wow, they’ve done a great job restoring it back to like it originally was!
I feel like I’ve gone back decades in time and I’m back at Vonachen’s Junction back in the ‘70’s!
They have the original menus on the tables, how cool!
Check out the prices from back in the day, all you can eat fried chicken for $3.50!
Here’s a place setting with another menu and matches from back in the day.
The other train car is a refurbished business car.
There’s a newspaper article from back in 1958 when Pete Vonachen bought this for Vonachen’s Junction. Check out Pete in the conductor’s cap in the above photo.
Here’s one of the rooms in the car complete with comfortable booth style seats and a fancy sink.
This is a vintage flyer that tells the story of Vonachens Junction with photos on display.
More matchbooks, cards and swizzle sticks from Vonachen’s Junction are on display here.
I loved seeing this photo of Vonachen’s Junction back in 1975 because back in 1975 I was in high school and working at the Drug Store in Junction City.
The owner of the Drug Store had a coffee club that met there on Sunday’s and one of the members was Pete Vonachen and I used to serve him and the other guys coffee, so I feel proud to be a small part of the history of Vonachen’s Junction!
Thanks to Wheels O’ Time for bringing this slice of Peoria’s history back to life. You should go and check this out and all of the other wonderful items that are on display out here! Its a fun and unique place to visit, they’re open now till October, Wednesday through Sunday.
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1710 Woodside Drive
Dunlap, IL
309-243-9020
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Related Post: Wheels O’ Time Museum: Planes, Trains, Automobiles…And So Much More!