RailsWest Railroad Museum

51503 Council Bluffs, IA, United States of America (USA) (Iowa )

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
RailsWest Railroad Museum is a railroad museum operated by the Historical Society of Pottawattamie County at 16th Avenue and South Main Street and illustrates the history of railroads in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

History

The museum is housed inside an Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad passenger depot that was also used by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific. The depot opened in 1899 and would become a daily stop for the Rocky Mountain Rocket, Midwest Hiawatha, the Arrow, and Corn Belt Rocket before the end of passenger service in 1970.

Museum

RailsWest includes historical exhibits on the eight railroads that served the community along with displays on the Railway Mail Service and an extensive HO scale model railroad. Adjacent to the historic depot are Union Pacific locomotive 814 and Chicago, Burlington and Quincy locomotive 915, Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad and Chicago, Burlington and Quincy cabooses, a 1953 switch engine built by the Plymouth Locomotive Works, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Omaha lounge car, a Union Pacific boxcar, and Union Pacific Railway Post Office car 5908. RailsWest is adjacent to tracks of the Union Pacific, BNSF, and Iowa Interstate Railroad with a fenced-in area for railfanning.

BACKGROUND

The restored depot was originally built in 1899 for the Chicago Rock Island and Pacific Railroad (the "Rock Island"), one of 15 rail lines serving Council Bluffs. The last Rock Island passenger trained pulled out of the depot on May 31, 1970. March 31, 1980 was the last day of operations for the Rock Island Railroad.

The construction of the transcontinental railroad played a major role in the development of southwest Iowa, and vice-versa. The history of this era is well preserved in our depot and museum. It is the last survivor of a half-dozen passenger depots which at one time dotted the Council Bluffs landscape.

In 1984 the Society and the Greater Omaha Society of Model Railroad Engineers (GOSOME) joined forces with Council Bluffs to save one of the last remaining depots in Council Bluffs. In 1985, the City of Council Bluffs leased the Depot to the Society and GOSOME, with instructions to restore the Depot into a tourist attraction and information center. On July 21, 1995, the Depot was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The renovation of the Depot and transformation into the RailsWest Railroad Museum took great effort. There was much rotted wood, much of the tile roof needed replacement, and a complete interior renovation was necessary. GOSOME relocated its extensive HO scale model railroad display from Omaha’s Western Heritage Museum, which was undergoing renovations of its own. Today the GOSOME display is located in the former freight section of the depot.

The RailsWest Railroad Museum is located in the former waiting rooms. There was a separate south waiting room for women and children, and north waiting room for men. The Museum includes a gift shop, railroad artifacts and exhibits, and the former ticket office.

The Museum has displays of dining car silverware, a telegraph office, and memorabilia such as porters' uniforms and ticket stubs. It has a large collection of daily newspapers chronicling the rise and fall of the railroads.

All railcars displayed outdoors were donated by the Union Pacific Railroad. Four of the railcars have been part of the Museum for a number of years. The Dodge Park Transportation Display was later relocated to the Depot site to enhance the rolling stock already on display there. Some of the cars have been restored but the upkeep and restoration of the remaining cars is a massive and on-going project.

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