PEORIA — It was a sad farewell and a fond hello Thursday as the first of two Pullman railway cars that formerly made up part of Vonachen’s Old Place restaurant made its way from Junction City to the Wheels O’ Time Museum in Far North Peoria.
Peorians in parking lots and on side streets clamored to retrieve cameras and capture in a photograph a piece of history passing by, as the train and its entourage of police cars, with blue and red lights flashing, paraded up Knoxville Avenue.
The procession crept solemnly past, blocking two lanes of traffic and narrowly gliding under traffic signals.
The train cars, purchased more than 50 years ago by Peoria’s iconic restaurateur Pete Vonachen, were retired from the restaurant business last year and donated to the museum, which paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $30,000 to move them, in addition to paying to demolish the small connecting building.
Wheels O’ Time President Gary Bragg said the VOP’s train cars, which are more than 100 years old, will be positioned on the railway tracks directly behind the Rock Island No. 886 engine and cars, which currently sit outside the museum.
The VOP’s cars were used for nearly 50 years as railroad cars and about 50 years at the restaurant.
“Few people in Peoria would remember them as railway cars, but most people knew them as the restaurant. When we’re done, we’ll try to celebrate both eras,” Bragg said.
As the trains left Junction City, perched atop steel beams on a massive semi-trailer, there were some misty-eyed Peorians watching them go.
Steve Shaw, 62, president of Mercedes Restaurants, operated the train restaurant from 1979 until 2008. Shaw then served as its general manager.
“I have many, many good memories of the restaurant, and the trains. It’s a sad day for everybody to see them go,” Shaw said, as he watched the procession turn onto Prospect Road.
Lynne Jones, 68, lives nearby and stopped to watch the car removal.
“This is sad because you kind of identify the corner with those trains. I started going to the restaurant when I first moved here from Chicago in the early 1960s. It was a big deal to eat dinner in a train car,” she said.
The car also had a small crowd waiting when it arrived, about an hour later, at its new home.
Dunlap residents Hazel Fritz, 80, and husband, Lee, 86, live near the museum and were excited to see how the car was moved into its new location.
“I’ve lived near trains all of my life and we really like them, so this is very interesting to us,” Hazel Fritz said.
The couple sat in their pickup truck, watching as the semi pulled into the driveway next to the museum and began its stop-and-go trek across a snow-covered field.
Fred Balagna, co-owner of Balagna House Moving Inc., said timing on moving the car was crucial because the field needed to be frozen but the move completed before the snow turned to mud.
The other train car will be moved along the same route Friday. The wheels and axles also will be moved to the museum tracks and reassembled there.
Bill Rice, a Wheels O’ Time volunteer, said he’s glad to have the cars at the museum.
“My parents had their 60th anniversary in the train/restaurant, so it’s special to me,” he said. “I know it’s in the right place now, and it will be special to everyone who visits the museum.”
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