Fox River Trolley Museum — Attraction in South Elgin

Took my young children here since they both have been obsessed about going on a train ride and I wasn't sure how they handle a train ride on a large train yet. This was absolutely perfect! They ride on on one train car and its about a 20 min ride to the forest preserve. The gentleman who works there was so informative and during the train ride gave us history regarding the railroad and train car as well as historic sights we were passing. My children were completely blown away and had such a wonderful time. Once we made it to the forest preserve we got off and stretched our legs and were able to get on again in 5 mins. Typically though if you get off, the conductor said it was about 30 minutes when the train comes back and you could go back on. Wonderful and magical experience for my children! There is also some other train cars you can explore while there, but otherwise the main attraction is the train ride. Only opened on weekends and special holidays. Also noticed the schedule gets even less as Fall approaches, so check website for operating times before...

I stopped there around Christmas with my son and because my grandson who was 5 yrs old, is infatuated with trains. We understood that it was the polar express event and we asked if he could walk around and we were told yes, but to just stay on the platform. We were approached once and told to leave and advised that we got the okay and were just looking. The second person who approached me was instantly upset and asked us to leave. I explained that we were just looking and abiding by their rules but agreed to leave because they were being obnoxious and rude. The guy who was yelling at me started to follow me back to my car with my grandson scolding me which was extremely inappropriate, rude and uncalled for! There are places better than this one that will treat me with respect and understand that this is a hobby and passion for a lot of people and are just there to relive their childhood and to relive it with the grandchildren that...

Polar Express was a BUST! I understand things happen, things break, people run late etc., but our train was over an hour behind schedule. I would expect for something geared towards small children when you are impacting bedtime there would be a thoughtful “would you like to reschedule” or “we’ve added an extra train at a later date if you want to reschedule” or SOMETHING, a refund? I understand the poor girls that work there don’t have much control, but some gesture or allowing you to reschedule should have been presented. $160 for a family of 4 (one of those being an infant) is INSANE especially when delays are present and you make 0 effort to try to remedy the situation. Plus the Gals working we’re telling the next train it was only 30 minutes late! They were not even setting a realistic expectation for our train or the next one. SUPER...