Phil O'Keefe was born in the Illinois Central Rail Road hospital on Chicago's south side. He has been interested in railroads ever since he can remember. Phil spent his childhood living in Chicago's south side near railroads like the Rock Island, the Illinois Central, and the Belt Railway. Phil's father was a special agent on the Illinois Central and a locomotive engineer on the Elgin, Joliet, and Eastern. Phil's paternal grandfather worked for the Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal, and two of his uncles worked for the Chicago, West Pullman, and Southern.
By the mid 1970's Phil became particularly interested in street railways, rapid transit, interurbans, and heavy electric railroads. He became a really big fan of Chicago area traction lines including the Chicago Tunnel Company, the Chicago Surface Lines, the Chicago Rapid Transit Company, the Chicago, South Shore, and South Bend, the Chicago, North Shore, and Milwaukee, and the Chicago, Aurora, and Elgin. He maintains a steadily growing collection of all sorts of traction memorabilia including lanterns, whistles, headlights, keys, locks, fare boxes, fare registers, buttons, tokens, and paper. About ten years ago, he became especially fond of collecting cap and breast badges from traction lines all over the country.
To carry on the family tradition of railroading Phil became a member of the Fox River Trolley Museum in South Elgin, Illinois. Throughout his years at the museum, he became involved in many different projects, from car restoration to track repairs. He also puts in time as a motorman and conductor on operating days.
Phil runs a business in which he builds highly-detailed scale models for railroads, corporations, and museums. Some of Phil's models and model building articles have appeared in Railroad Model Craftsman Magazine and Fine Scale Modeller Magazine. He has built scale models for well known clients like the Thunderbird Museum, Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, and the Norfolk Southern Railroad.
Phil is an artist, and his illustrations have appeared in several railfan and railroad publications like the Shore Line Interurban Historical Society's magazine First and Fastest. He is especially proud of the dust jacket which he designed for Bruce Moffat's book: The "L", The Development of Chicago's Rapid Transit 1889-1932.
The Illinois Production Guide lists Phil as a consultant to the movie industry. He specializes in railroad and industrial subjects. He has done research for the popular television program ER.
Phil has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He is a member of the Central Electric Railfans' Association, Key Lock and Lantern, and the Society for Industrial Archeology. He is married with three children and resides in the Chicago area.
Contact Phil O'Keefe at: chicagotunnel@ameritech.net
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