A Car Barn without a Car...Part Two

After leaving the Dart, I made the decision to head into Downtown Rockford again. I had not been there in a year, and I thought it would be nice to drive around a bit and admire the architecture

I made my way through the side street of the area making my way to the main road into Rockford. I saw an old Chrysler Boat, not something you see very often.

Getting to the main road wasn't too hard, just took a while with the rough roads and the shot suspension of my truck. Nevertheless, I made it with only a few bumps and made a left, heading to downtown.

Driving down the main street of Rockford towards downtown, it was depressing to see the rundown factories and homes.

I was almost to the downtown when I noticed a used car lot on one side of the street. It had only two cars, a 67 Plymouth Satellite and a Chevy Impala.

The actual lot was closed, but the building that the cars were sitting next to was for sale. I called the number on the building and no one answered, but I left a message. I did get a call back by the owner of the cars. He said that the Satellite was a 318 car; it had new brakes and a few other miscellaneous items. It could be driven he said. I passed on this as well, because the price was high, for the work needed to make the car even decent.

I made my way into Downtown Rockford. It was depressing to see these large beautiful buildings, mostly sitting empty. Driving up and down the streets, it seemed like a ghost town. That didn't stop me from enjoying the sites of the town.

The way I entered the main downtown, you go over the Rock River on a large bridge, and exit on another bridge to cross the river. I noticed below the bridge was some railroad tracks, and what looked like an old station, so I had to investigate.

I made my way down to the railroad tracks. The tracks were between the road and the river for most of the time. It then passed an old train station, and then continued down the middle of the street.

I noticed that the train station looked restored, but had picnic tables on the deck, so I assumed it wasn't functional anymore. Then I notice a building that has a small branch line going into the barn. I read the sign and it says "Rockford & Interurban Railway Co." and then "Car Barn".

This seemed like a sign to me. I'm hunting for cars in barns, and I find something labeled "Car Barn" on this hunt? What are the odds? So I walk up next to the car barn and look through the windows, and see something most unexpected.

Sitting in the barn is an interesting old Trolley car. It looked fully restored and operational. I love old trolleys and could not believe my luck. I was able to snap a few pictures through the windows. I could not have been any happier just looking at that old trolley. It brought back allot of memories of going to other Trolley museums around the area.

However, I had to get underway, time was quickly running out and I still wanted to explore a little bit more, so I followed the train tracks down the street for less then a mile when something else surprising appeared in the road, a hovercraft.

I slammed on my brakes and looked left at the frozen river, and there was a group of homemade hovercrafts playing around. So I parked the truck, strolled over to the guys and girl, and chatted with them about their hovercrafts.

They are part of a website, hovercraft.com. They were beginning a little trip down the Rock River. I said how interesting that was, and how cool the fact that they had been home built. They said it was a lot of fun and enjoyed playing with them.

We parted company, and I started back to the highway, but not before hitting one more spot. The 72 Demon I had come looking for the year before. I had heard it has been sitting there for a very long time, and I just wanted to see if it was still sitting in the same spot.

I didn't have my directions I kept on how to get there, but I still found the car without problem, and it had not moved. The Demon looked almost identical to the last time, just with snow covering everything.

On that depressing note, I turned around and headed for home, it was still beautiful out, so the drive home wasn't too bad until I hit traffic around O'Hare. I had a nice day and one heck of an adventure.

Ryan
HemiPwr70@aol.com

Do you know of any Cars in Barns in the midwest? Send me pictures and stories!