Monon Connection Museum

Normally I would rate about the food. Today I have to say it was the management I will rate. I overheard the owner/​manager call an employee stupid and ignorant to other customers because of a bumper sticker. This is not how one should run a business. Slander is not a good practice. This employee should file a formal complaint. I will never eat at an establishment that speaks poorly of their employees. How Unprofessional!!!

Awesome place for rail fans and I just came here after my vacation. There are lots of Monon railway places in Indiana because it’s the Hoosier Line. The first Monon place I’ve went to is abandon in Munster Indiana and South Hammond were the company The Hoosier Line was, at now it’s torn up and it has dirt and mud the water tower and bridge remains. I am a rail fan I went to different places like Griffith Indiana were the Erie Lackawanna remains and the C&O tracks remain there. But the Monon is still running today as CSX and Amtrak. Monon is still a famous city to Indiana but Indiana is no longer the motto of The Crossroads of tracks. Griffith’s motto is the town that came to tracks. The Monon and Amtrak work together in the 1980s until Monon was out of business and the same as Griffith the El the C&O and the EJ&E are out of business today the C&O line is now the Illinois central which runs a chemical plant. Cn (Canadian National) took over all of these lines except for Illinois Central.

Clean, friendly, and fairly priced. Always wanted to stop here, as we drive by quite often. Food came out hot and I’m still alive lol so not bad at all!

great place to eat, especially if you are into trains. good food, quiet other than the cool large scale model trains running overhead! nice clean place!

Hands down, this is the best railroad artifact museum one can see in the US. Dale Ward began collecting in 1993 and he has amassed over 6000 of rail related and period. There are literally hundreds of different hand held lanterns, a movie screen which displays a variety of train related DVD’s, and a Illinois Central RR depot from Emory. Outside the different signals are powered but at the time of my visit, not all were working; the rolling stock collection is also growing with four more units to be brought to the grounds, there is a gift store in the ticket depot from Cove. This museum was a definite visit on this particular vacation and now I feel that I can die a fulfilled train fan. Harold, the interpreter, was more than happy to point out all of the significant pieces and even went out of his way to answer my questions. At the beginning of his tour, he gives an overview of the pieces in the first room. In the dining room, there are Pennsylvania RR calendars from 1929 – 1959, and two drum heads, one from the Presidential coach. Inside the dining room is a G scale model train which operates elevated just below the ceiling. MAKE the effort and budget some extra time, I spent just shy of 5 hours. Note, I didn’t have time to eat in the restaurant but it was very busy from when I arrived till when I left.

We have visited before, but it’s been a while. I don’t know if we had a unambitious waiter, or if quality has fallen. We had to ask for utensils, but only one of the four of us received them. Hamburgers came with nothing — no lettuce, tomato, onion — totally plain. Water is awful. We got napkins after asking twice. Food was okay, but not extraordinary. No dessert menu, or desserts listed on the main menu. The restroom is for one person. We had to wait in line, or pay to get in the «museum» to use a unisex restroom. No way to dry our hands, because they were out of paper towels. The sink water was scalding hot to the point of steaming. I felt like we paid a lot for a very mediocre meal and service. We were sadly disappointed.

Great place to see trains other than that is just a frozen food prepared restaurant. At the prices they charge you should have. Fresh meal prepared with fresh food instead of frozen boxes of horrible Sysco food products. I can get the same meal a lot cheaper in the frozen food isle at Walmart.

We make the Whistle Stop a regular stopping point on our way from West Michigan to Gulf Shores, Alabama. Our recent stop on 5÷11÷2013 was a particularly delight. Dale the owner stopped at our table and introduced himself. Dale told us a little about the Whistle Stop and the museum and introduced us to his grand daughter who was working as host, cleaning tables and sweeping the floor. Dale’s work ethic was obviously passed along to his grand daughter. Dale’s hospitality and family values were a nice diversion from our long trip home. If you’re looking for something other than rural Indiana hospitality, Chicago’s not far away.
We’ve always received exceptional service here and the food is good down home comfort food. The model trains traveling on tracks suspended from the ceiling and all the train memorabilia are enough to make stopping here worthwhile.

Food is very good. Service was great! We had the country fried steak, corn & mashed potatoes, real taters by the way! Wife had pork chops, baked potato & salad. Free dip of ice cream each.

Food was horrible and service was slow. Took 45min for my wife to get her meal (and it want even busy). I was half done with my plate by then. Her food was so bad she returned it. Her replacement order took another 30 min and she didn’t like it enough to finish it. Haven’t been back.

Food is acceptable, not worth writing home about, but acceptable. I take the kids anytime we’re in Monon. My boys love to watch the trains circle overhead on the tacks suspended from the ceiling. We even get in the caboose outside when it’s open. Service is great, trains are fun!

I give the Monon Connection Museum 5 stars because it is obviously a labor of love for the people who put up the money to create the museum and for the people who parted with their beloved collections to help fill-​out this out-​of-​the-​way, small town museum. It’s places like this that make me love Americana because they preserve parts of the past that could very well be discarded and forgotten. This isn’t the Smithsonian by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s worth stopping at, if you’re going through here, and $ 5.00 entrance fee not only provides you with half and hour to an hours entertainment/​education but it helps preserve the collections. I’ve been to a lot of museums, including train museums like Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village, and I don’t remember ever seeing a crane car. I can’t even imagine the cost of transporting that monster from Rockford, IL to Monon, IN.
I give the restaurant 2 stars. I know they warn you in the menu that their service is not speedy and that they put quality over speediness, but I just don’t buy it. From the attitude of the staff (for which there are a surprising abundance of them compared to diners), they just don’t care to seat you or serve you. We waited by the front door with 8 other people for 10 long minutes while they bustled around the 4 tables which had diners already seated. They all saw us (3 parties), but it was someone else’s job (wherever she was) to seat us so they just left us all scrunched in the doorway. When we were finally seated and our drinks and meals ordered, our glasses remained empty most of the time and were refilled twice in the long wait before and after we received our entrees. My SO got a hamburger and I got the open rib-​eye sandwich. The food was just OK. The lemonade was fantastic which is the nicest thing I have to say about the restaurant and my dining experience here.
Come see the museum, and eat only if you really, really need a long time to stare at the trains overhead.

I travel this stretch of road (⁴²¹⁄₄₃) between Lafayette and Michigan City often and this is one of the few sit-​down places to eat between Brookston and Westville. You probably wouldn’t go out of your way to eat here, but if you’re on this road and want to eat something other than fast food or if you’re a train fan, especially Monon fan, this isn’t a bad place to stop. I had the BBQ pulled pork sandwich and iced tea and my husband had the ham steak and a chocolate shake. The bill was $ 17.
The restaurant was busy for a weekday lunch which is, in part, a reflection of the fact that there isn’t a lot of competition for the dining dollar in this area.
Our waitress was very friendly and the food arrived quickly The décor is railroad oriented with several Lionel trains circling the restaurant on overhead tracks.

If you have kids, like Hoosier history or just want great food — this is a great place for you. Indiana seems so void of cool stuff but sometimes you find this cool little-​known niche that you just have to share.
The Monon RR operated from north to south. They had a train painted for IU (passengers) and one for PU (freight). They picked up Indiana limestone and carried passenger traffic for the Oaken Bucket game. It was a Hoosier original and made Monticello a robust town.
The museum is excellent with substantive memorabilia and many train cars you can board outside on the lot.
Counter to another critic, I thought the salad bar was fresh and excellent and unusual since it’s hard to find one these days.
The sandwiches my kids had were readily eaten and they loved seeing the small scale train work it’s way around the ceiling while we waited on our food.
This is one of a few Indiana locations I would deem a destation. –Greg

A railroad museum-​cum-​diner in BuFu, Indiana – sounds awesome, right? I wish I could give this place a better rating, but the food was so uninspiring. The salad bar was half-​assed. No fries. The grilled cheese was okay. Everything on my dining companions’ plates looked pretty meh, even for a diner, and the service was neither warm nor sassy nor quick. I did like what I could see of the railroad museum area (which was very small) because I can geek out on old-​skool train advertising or China patterns from the dining cars of yore, but I wasn’t inspired enough to pay the $ 5 admission. A kid might really enjoy this place as there are at least three model trains suspended near the ceiling of the restaurant and some cool old fixtures outside, but definitely don’t come hungry.