GALESBURG, Ill. — H-o-o-o-o-o-o-t. The next time you’re in town, plan on hearing a railroad whistle. There are 160 trains a day through Galesburg, and they sound their whistles at least a half-dozen times while rumbling through town.

The citizenry must be getting some kind of earache listening to all those whistles. But they probably couldn’t sleep at night if all was silent in this city that takes a high toot of pride in its Galesburg Railroad Museum at 211 S. Seminary St.

America is railroad-spiked with train museums, but this one is about 55 miles south of the Quad-Cites, an easy hour’s drive on Interstate 74 that should take about four gallons of gas to get there and back. Galesburg is a city tied to Illinois by trains, with one of largest railroad yards in the United States.

The Railroad Museum is very much at home, close to the tracks and only a few yards from the Galesburg Depot, where eight Amtrak trains stop and go every day. During a visit to the museum, you’ll likely have a chance to watch the comings and goings of Amtrak passengers. Two trains made stops during our visit.

The big attraction is that colossal steam engine, good old No. 3006, a Hudson that was built in 1930 when steam was king on the long, shiny tracks of America. Locomotives like No. 3006 — nicknamed “The Lady” — pulled passengers and the mail at speeds that could take your breath away: 100 to 110 mph on the straight right-of-way.

Alongside No. 3006 is an authentic U.S. Mail Railway Post Office Express car, fully equipped and rarin’ to go. Nearby on the rails is a real Pullman Sleeper, a 1921 model that was once the pride of the rails. You’re welcome aboard.

Climb the iron steps (be careful on a rainy day) into the cab of that honest-to-goodness steam locomotive. Dream a little to imagine that you’re Casey Jones at the throttle. On a warm August day, it’s surprisingly cool 15 feet in the air, where an engineer — a knightly person — held the awesome assignment of high-balling down the right-of-way in concert with his always-reliable fireman.

“She’s still a fine old girl,” says Karen Godsil Patrick, the curator of the museum, who explains that locomotives have genders. “This one is a girl, that’s why we call her ‘The Lady.’ ” Karen talks with affection, as if speaking about a child or her pet dog. She points to the big wheels, which made her a fast locomotive compared with males that had smaller wheels. Boy engines had smaller wheels for traction to pull heavy freight loads.

Karen, a fifth-generation member of her family when it comes to railroad connections, has some interesting tales about The Lady.

“There are superstitions about locomotives. This one was never in a fatal accident. If a steam locomotive ever took a life — like killing someone at a crossing — it was bad luck. It was taken out of service. Railroad men would say that it was going to become razor blades, which was one way of saying it was going to become scrap metal.”

The Lady, built in 1930, went out of service in 1957 after traveling more than 2 million miles. Not many of her kind are left in America, most of them in museums like the one here in Galesburg.

A companion to the No. 3006 locomotive and tender is the U.S. Railway Post Office Express car. It remains as it was in the 1930s when six or eight postal employees, working with lightning hands, sorted 85,000 pieces of mail during their 16-hour shifts. All carried revolvers because they were employed by the government and company payrolls were regularly aboard. Even the canvas mail sacks are undisturbed.

Kids will delight in the caboose, another authentic rolling piece of disappearing railroad lore. It’s easy to imagine that a caboose is cozy. It isn’t. It has humble bunks and a porta-potty. This one at Galesburg is so authentic that the shelves contain canned goods and boxes of cereal.

“Cabooses have gone the way of steam. When railroads did away with them, you could buy one for $20. Now I wonder if you could find one for $20,000,” the curator says.

Too bad, but the museum’s 1921 Pullman coach, a sleeper car, has been stripped. Once, it was the Railroad Museum’s exhibition hall; now, it is barren, gaunt with ghosts of memories when it was shiny with brass and walnut woodwork. Still, it’s an interesting walk-through.

Inside the main museum, you’ll find everything you ever wanted to know — and maybe didn’t want to know — about trains. There are scores of lanterns, used as actual “talking devices” by conductors, call boards and depot switch boards. One shelf has a lineup of old conductor hats. There are long-stemmed oil cans, conductor watches and train models.

Karen trails visitors through the big four-year-old museum that looks like an old railroad depot. She likes to tell about Floraine Amos, a former Galesburg resident who once was a Zepherette on shiny Burlington Zephyr passenger trains. Zepherettes were like flight attendants of today, but they had far more duties.

“They were telegraphers and tended to all passenger needs,” Karen says. “At Christmas, they had a tree and a party for children. At Easter, the Zepherettes had egg hunts.”

Passenger trains of old took great pride in their diners. Dozens of old menus are on view. A 1940 Burlington Zephyr menu shows a walleye dinner with fresh asparagus for $1.70. The depot has shelves of railroad china with distinctive patterns for each meal.

“I took an Amtrak trip and was unpleasantly surprised to find meals were served on plastic plates. Compare that to the 30-weight china like this,” Karen says, picking up a dinner plate from a Rock Island Lines Rocket.

Wandering around the depot, you’ll likely find some old railroader eager to spin tales of his lifetime working freight and passenger trains. “Barney” may be there. He is a railroad retiree who will play a banjo solo for you.

You’ll hear real trains hooting outside, and some kid likely will be tooting on one of the authentic-sounding wooden railroad whistles that are for sale in the depot souvenir shop. You may even want to buy an authentic engineer’s cap.

There may be more railroading in the offing. Funds are being raised for a National Railroad Hall of Fame, which is to be built in Galesburg near the present Railroad Museum.

Bill Wundram can be contacted at (563) 383-2249 or bwundram@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.