East Troy Railroad Museum

The East Troy Railroad Museum operates the last 7 miles (11 km) of what was once a 200-mile electric interurban network run across southeastern Wisconsin by The Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Company. Trains leave a brick substation at 2002 Church Street in the village of East Troy, Walworth County, and run northeast through farmland to Mukwonago, in Waukesha County, calling at a platform beside The Elegant Farmer country store at 1545 Main Street and turning at Lower Phantom Lake. The museum advertises the out-and-back as a 14-mile (23 km) round trip; it takes roughly 90 minutes. Power comes from 600-volt DC overhead wire that the museum describes as original to 1907, and the track is standard gauge, 4 ft 8 1/2 in (1,435 mm).

TMER&L built the line from Mukwonago in 1906 and completed the 36-mile run into East Troy on 13 December 1907, opening a freight and passenger link that served oil distributors, lumber yards and dairies. Passenger service ended in 1938. When TMER&L's successor filed to abandon the branch in 1939, the Village of East Troy bought the Mukwonago-to-East Troy segment for $10,000 after residents approved the purchase 321 votes to 11. From 1950 the village ran it itself as the Municipality of East Troy Wisconsin Railroad, reporting mark METW, hauling 800 to 1,000 freight cars a year and billing itself as the only municipally operated electric railroad in the country. Freight declined through the 1970s. The Wisconsin Electric Railway Historical Society began excursions over the line in 1972, the Wisconsin Trolley Museum moved its operation to East Troy in spring 1985, and the Friends of the East Troy Railroad bought the property outright on 13 January 1995.

Today the railroad is a 501(c)(3) non-profit run entirely by volunteers: roughly 500 members worldwide, about 110 active volunteers, some 30 pieces of electric railway equipment and around 25,000 visitors a year. On 10 June 2026 the Wisconsin Historical Society announced that the East Troy Electric Railroad Historic District had been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The district covers the 7 miles of line from Mukwonago to East Troy - grade, track, powerlines and switch stands - together with 30 pieces of electric rolling stock, eight of them associated with TMER&L, and the 1909 Neoclassical brick substation at the East Troy yard that now serves as ticket office, museum and gift shop.

The depot yard at 2002 Church Street is the most productive spot on the property: cars are shuffled between departures beside the 1909 substation, so a single morning can yield a wooden 1908 interurban, a 1920 Milwaukee streetcar and a 1920s Chicago South Shore steel car under the same span of wire. Overhead line, trolley poles and switch stands are all in frame here, and the substation's brick Neoclassical facade gives a period backdrop that needs no cropping.

On the line, the passing sidings at Army Lake and Beulah are where trains meet, and a meet under catenary in open farmland is the shot most visitors come away wanting. Jim Byrnes Memorial Park sits along the route, and The Elegant Farmer platform in Mukwonago gives a station stop with people boarding rather than an empty consist. Lower Phantom Lake, the turning point, puts water behind the train.

Interiors reward as much as exteriors. Car 26's varnished woodwork, the art-deco interiors of dining cars 24 and 25, and the motorman's position at the front of each car are all accessible while the train is running. Light is the constraint: most departures fall between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., so the low sun that flatters a wooden interurban is available only on the last Saturday and Sunday trips of the day, and on the autumn Harvest Fest weekends when the sun sets earlier. Confirm any tripod, drone or commercial-shoot intention with the volunteers before setting up.

The roster is the reason to come, and it is unusually deep for a line this short. Car 26, a wooden interurban built by the Cincinnati Car Company in 1908 for the Sheboygan Light, Power & Railway Company, is 44 feet long, seats 44, rode on Brill trucks with 36-inch wheels and was rated for 45 mph. It was sold for $250 in 1937, spent decades as a summer cottage near Lake Michigan, was donated to the museum by Paul Doedens in 1988 and returned to service after restoration in 2005. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on 21 November 2006, reference 06001069, in its own right.

Alongside it run streetcar 846, built in 1920 for The Milwaukee Electric Railway and Transport Company and described by the museum as the only working Milwaukee streetcar; Twin City Rapid Transit 1583, built at the company's Snelling Shops in St. Paul in 1913 and rebuilt in 1928, 1933 and 1948; and Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee 761, a steel interurban of 1930. The heart of the operating fleet is a block of Chicago South Shore & South Bend steel interurbans - cars 9 and 13 of 1926, and 30 and 33 of 1929 - with combine 107 of 1926 under restoration and cars 6 and 23 awaiting their turn. Electric freight equipment survives too: TMER&L line car D23 of 1907, crane car L6 of 1911, steeplecab L8 of 1935, East Troy's own steeplecab L9 of 1944, and Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee box motor 228 of 1922. Three Chicago Rapid Transit 'L' cars of 1924 - 4420, 4439 and 4453 - and a Milwaukee Street Railway horse car of the 1880s round out the collection.

The museum also runs what it describes as the only electric interurban dining car service in North America. The two dining cars, 24 and 25, named Ravenswood and Beverly Shores, began life as Chicago South Shore & South Bend interurbans of 1927 and were rebuilt into art-deco diners in 1991 and 1995; each seats 50 at tables for two and four, with a cash bar and a working restroom. The substation itself is part of the visit: five rotary converters once stood inside, one of which survives and has been cosmetically restored for display, and the museum presents the building as America's first automated substation.

Ticketing and the museum are at the East Troy Depot, the old substation on Church Street, where parking and restrooms are free. A ticket is a day pass: it is good on every train that day, and because the museum rotates equipment between departures, riding two or three trips usually means riding two or three different cars. Trains leave hourly on summer Saturdays and every two hours on Fridays and Sundays. Conductors and docents work the aisles with the history of the line, and passengers can watch the motorman handle the controller from the front of the car.

The ride itself is deliberately unimproved. Speeds stay low - one published account of a trip aboard 1583 records that the train never really exceeded 15 mph - and the wooden cars flex, rattle and let in whatever weather is outside. Windows are single-pane and heavy to move. Only dining cars 24 and 25 have air conditioning; most other cars have heat, but Car 26 and the open car do not. There are no working restrooms on the trains except in the dining cars; there are restrooms at the East Troy Depot and at Indianhead Park, and portable toilets only at The Elegant Farmer. Eating is not allowed on board outside the dining trains, and the whole operation is smoke-free.

Trains run rain or shine, though the museum may substitute equipment to suit the weather and will not operate with lightning nearby. Summer and Harvest Fest passengers may board at The Elegant Farmer platform in Mukwonago; the FAQ notes those trains reach east to Lower Phantom Lake but do not cross Highway ES into Indianhead Park, while dining trains pause beside Lower Phantom Lake for dessert and lay over ten minutes at Indianhead Park. Dining, Bunny, Trick-or-Treat and Christmas trains board only at East Troy and carry reserved seats. The museum keeps a live view of its own platform, the East Troy Platform Cam, on its website and on its YouTube channel; the images are its property and may not be used commercially.