Only eighteen years separates two engines.

Illinois Railway Museum’s Nebraska Zephyr is an articulated streamlined train built entirely of stainless steel. The train is known as the “Train of the Goddesses” because each of its five cars is named after a classical deity. It is the only complete Zephyr train from the Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad in operation today.

The Nebraska Zephyr was constructed by the Budd Company of Philadelphia in 1936.

San Francisco Railroad (“Frisco”) 1630 is the Illinois Railway Museum’s most famous steam engine. A “Russian Decapod,” it was built in 1918 for export to Russia but was embargoed when the Bolshevik Revolution took place. The “Decapod” is a heavy freight locomotive ideal for low speeds and heavy tonnage.

Instead of going to Russia, the newly completed engine was sold to the Frisco, which used it in both freight and passenger service into the 1950s. The Frisco was later sold to Eagle-Picher Mining, where it was used to haul freight and aggregate trains until the mid-1960s.