Railswest Railroad Museum
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Railswest Railroad Museum
16th Avenue and South Main Street (I-80 Exit 3)
Council Bluffs, Iowa
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 the former 1899 Rock lsland Depot located at South Main Street and Sixteenth Avenue in Council Bluffs. It is the last survivor of a half-dozen passenger depots which at one time dotted the Council Bluffs landscape. After surveying the westward route of the Rock Island Railroad to Council Bluffs in 1853, surveyor and engineer Grenville M. Dodge went on to survey a route west from Council Bluffs enabling the city to become the eastern terminus of the transcontinental railroad years later. The Rock lsland Depot is a tribute to that undertaking and the era of railroading that followed. The restored 1899 Rock Island Depot in Council Bluffs is known as the RailsWest Railroad Museum and HO Model Railroad. The Depot is on the National Register of Historic Places. With the museum's
railcar display and the extensive model railroad this attraction is popular with all ages. Many area residents used to leave and arrive at the depot. Many area servicemen have fond memories of the station. The inside of the depot has many displays of railroad memorabilia and artifacts, plus old newspaper clippings on railroading. "Everyone loves a train".