Illini Railroad Club

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The official railroad club at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The IRC traces its roots back to 1912, making it one of the oldest RSO's on campus.

The Illini Railroad Club (IRC) is a Registered Student Organization at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for students and staff who have an interest in railroad operations, model railroading, and/or any other activities related to railroading.

15/09/2026

Hello all!

We had a very successful operating session on Saturday night. Lots of people showed up, and suggested plenty of ideas for our club’s future. We’ll have more realistic operating sessions in the future, but I think everyone enjoyed a bit of the chaos of last weekend.

This weekend will be a work session, dealing with minor issues encountered last weekend and building up a new yard module.

Cameron Sameshima, President of IRC

30/08/2026

We had a successful first meeting! Plenty of new members showed up, and we’re getting ready for our next meeting; slide night! Bring in your photos and videos of trains!

01/03/2026

On the eve of March, and Lincoln Square Train Show fever, we are working hard to get our new yard ladder ready. This new module will allow us to store locomotives, and provide more storage for longer trains.

Go Illini!

16/10/2025

Last weekend, we attended the semi-annual Cornfield FreeMo meet up in McLean, Illinois.

Such as in previous years, modules are put together, and people run model trains on the combined setup, sometimes working local industries.

Unfortunately, we could not bring our own modules this year due to a lack of cars, but we still had a lot of fun! We’d like to thank the Cornfield FreeMo organizers for allowing us to participate!

- Cameron Sameshima, Vice President

22/09/2025

Chief Illini rides again! At the Illinois Railway Museum’s 2025 Showcase Weekend, Pullman Inglehome made its first appearance in more than a decade. Of course, this car is the former Chief Illini. Multiple former club members were present to ride the car, which was illuminated with lighting thanks to the hard work of museum volunteers. While we do not believe it to be the original, an IRC drumhead insert was also located during the car’s repairs. This drumhead is the design which was normally used on our Illinois Terminal Interurban cars which also reside in the IRM collection.

31/03/2025

The annual Urbana Train Show was a success!
Thank you to all who came out and checked out our layout and ran trains on it!

27/03/2025

Illini Railroad Club will be at the annual Urbana Train Show this weekend at Lincoln Square Mall.

Saturday 3/29, 8 AM-5 PM
Sunday 3/30, 11 AM-4 PM

Model railroad modules will be put in place at NOON on Saturday as soon as the farmer's market ends that morning.

See you there!

12/03/2025

The collection grows… more IRC membership cards. The first two cards appeared in a previous post, but additional cards from the same owner have been up on eBay for a while now. Finally decided to pick them up and fill in the collection. A few years are still missing, but this new batch has greatly expanded the card inventory. A card from the 50’s would be a great find. I’m not sure when the membership cards were first introduced to the club, although I suspect the 1970 card shown on the bottom right is the last one. Maury Klebolt moved to California in 1969 and the original iteration of the club didn’t last much longer than that without him.

31/10/2024

IRC attended the semi-annual Cornfield FreeMo meet over the weekend of Oct. 18-20 in McLean.

We set our modules among others there and made it into one big layout, and operated model trains on the layout over the entire weekend.

On top of that, a few members went trackside and watched some higher-speed Amtrak trains zip through the town.

-Zach Shapero, IRC Secretary

11/06/2024

Made a visit to the Illinois Railway Museum and spotted this photo in the East Union Depot. The image depicts club president Maury Klebolt (seated at right) talking to a conductor on a North Shore Electroliner. This photo was taken on the last day of railroad operations, January 20, 1963.

I neglected to record the photographer, but the exhibit featured many North Shore Line photos.

Consider making a donation to the museum to support their restoration of the Electroliner as well as our former club cars like the Chief Illini.

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http://illinirailroadclub.org/

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