Memorial Day Weekend Washout – sort of

The first big holiday of the summer season found the Milwaukee Railroad Shops Historic District trying to dry out. Wednesday night May 23^rd Sioux City had a gully washer of a rail storm come through dumping 2-3 inches of rain in the Riverside area. All this water in such a short time allowed for little soak in time and the runoff from the Losses Hills and Iowa Hwy 12 assaulted the rail yard leaving drains plugged up with debris resulting in water up to a foot deep in some area of the complex. The turntable pit filled half way up, the maintenance pits in the roundhouse had water in them and some low level flooding caused water to seep through the doors and on to the floor of the machine shop building. 

With more rain in the forecast for the weekend it was determined that for the safety of our visitors, due to all the high water and mud, that we would close to the public for the weekend in an effort to dry out. The Sioux City Journal posted the closing along with onsite television reports from local stations and the radio. The volunteers showed up Friday, Saturday and Sunday to assist with the clean-up and work on other projects.

Well, never let it be said that you can keep a good thing down. Even though the local visitors stayed away; the out town folks flocked in. Not knowing of our soggy dilemma our out of town visitors showed up in bunches and after traveling as far as 2-3 hours they did not want to go back empty handed so they braved the conditions and made the best of it. We could not find it in our hearts to turn away someone that had traveled so far so we gladly greeted them and invited them into the museum. As a matter of fact, our out of town visitor traffic was so high on Friday and Saturday that we had to call in extra volunteers to help out.

Due to the high water even the animals were searching for higher ground. In one instance this allowed us a unique opportunity to teach some of the younger folks about Mother Nature and her wonderful art of camouflage as can be seen by the tree frog in the picture below; hanging out on the hand railing of our open box car exhibit. 

Everyone made the most of the soggy muddy conditions and where eventually able to find some (almost) drier paths to navigate around the rail yard complex. For those that traveled to see us; thank you for coming up to spend some time at our railroad museum. We hope to see you back soon – under drier conditions of course :-).

NATIONAL TRAIN DAY 2012 – RECAP

The weather was perfect, the sun was out and families from all over showed up to enjoy the day. 1,210 people attended this year’s event. That’s a 38% increase over the 750 people that attended the event last year. 

Our efforts to become a tourist attraction for Sioux City and helping the local Riverside area of town and North Sioux City economically are also beginning to pay off. We had folks from Omaha, Sioux Falls, Kansas City, Fargo, New Jersey and Minnesota all stop in to enjoy the museum. After spending a couple hours with us they were asking for directions to local restaurants, gas and shopping areas to which we gladly directed them.

We heard many positive comments from visitors about our new sign along Hwy 12 making it easier to find our entrance and about the new concrete walkway entrance and the new exhibits that were opened to the public for the first time during this event. Many first time visitors were surprised at what we actually had to offer. One family said, “We drive by this place all time and see the old buildings, but never imagined that you had all this going on inside the walls of these buildings. This is really a special place.” 

One minor setback to the original program plan, due to some unforeseen technical difficulties, we were unable to pull steam locomotive GN 1355 out of the roundhouse for display on the turntable. However, an alternate attraction was developed as we started up our 1943 built 45 ton GE switch engine and used it to demonstrate the operation of the roundhouse turntable by driving it on the turntable and taking it for a spin and driving back off the turntable 5 tracks later. We did this twice during the day to the joy of hundreds that watched.  For many this was the first time ever seeing the actual operation of a railroad turntable and for others it brought back found memories of days gone by.

Dr. Rudy Daniels gave a 50 minute talk about how important the railroads were to the development of Sioux City and other area towns. The turnout out for this was very well attended in that it was standing room only in the Blacksmith portion of the Machine Shop building were the speech took place. Our new Downtown Sioux City Railroads Depot Exhibit made a wonderful back drop for Dr. Daniels as he was dressed in a Milwaukee Road Conductors uniform standing in front of a wood paneled re-creation of a depot office complete with a wood roll top desk, telegraph machine, pot belly stove, and other railroad depot memorabilia.

Thank you to all that attended and to those that missed out, come on down any time. We are now open 6 days a week (every day except Tuesdays) and please be sure to check out our Upcoming Events tab on our web site for future events.

National Train Day, Saturday May 12th, 2012

The Milwaukee Railroad Historic Shops and Railroad museum will be combining two events into one spectacular day. We are the feature attraction closing up a week long celebration as Sioux City Historic Preservation Week wraps up and we are once again joining the National celebration of National Train Day.

National Train Day marks the 143rd anniversary of the creation of the nation's first transcontinental railroad. On May 10, 1869, in Promontory Summit, Utah, the 'golden spike' was driven into the final tie that joined 1,776 miles of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railways, forever transforming the face and character of America. Special celebrations have been planned by Amtrak at many of its stations across the country as well as hundreds of additional railroad focused museums, tourism trains and historic sights. We are also lucky enough to be celebrating Sioux City Historic Preservation Week at the same time. This year’s theme is “Sioux City – It All Started Downtown”. In keeping with this theme we have built a new exhibit in the Machine/Blacksmith Shop called the “Downtown Sioux City Railroads Exhibit” featuring blueprints, photos and more highlighting downtown Sioux City during the railroad heydays of the early 1900’s.

Things to see and do!

• Hours: 10 am – 4 pm

• Admission: FREE

• Outside Exhibition of 4-6-2 steam locomotive Great Northern #1355 built in 1909

• Motor Car Rides: $2 each for kids 5 to 105 years old
                            $1 each for kids 2-5 years old

• Grand Opening: Machine/Blacksmith Shop – Downtown Sioux City Railroads Exhibit

• Grand Opening: Roundhouse Bay 1 (north end) – SHRA Preservation Gallery

• 2 PM in the new Downtown Sioux City Railroads Exhibit - Dr. Rudy Daniels will be giving a talk about downtown Sioux City rail services.

• Popcorn and Beverages will be available for purchase

* The Tri-State Crankers will have vintage cars parked on the grass around the turntable.

• Try our ALL NEW self-guided walking tour book for a new in-depth look around the complex. Cost is only $3 each. Also, $1 of each book sold goes directly to the building restoration fund so you can help us continue to make this complex a must see attraction.

• See the amazing progress in the restoration of the 75 ft x 15 ft HO scale Nebraska Central Model Railroad in the Railroad Civil Engineering Display Hall. Currently operating 4 trains on large continuous loops.

• Experience the 30 acres of this railroad locomotive and rolling stock servicing and repair center. Built in 1917 and employing over 500 people at the peak of its operations.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to experience this one of a kind historic district and railroad museum. It’s a well kept Sioux City secret ……. So don’t be left behind!

For more information about the Roundhouse complex visit our web site at: www.milwaukeerailroadshops.org

WE ARE NOW OPEN 6 DAYS A WEEK!

Our new Operating hours effective May 1st, 2012

Monday       10 am to 4 pm
Tuesday       Closed
Wednesday 10 am to 4 pm
Thursday     10 am to 4 pm
Friday         10 am to 4 pm
Saturday     10 am to 4 pm
Sunday        Noon to 4 pm

Please visit our web site for a list of upcoming events. www.milwaukeerailroadshops.org

A thank you to the SHRA volunteers

Hello to all our wonderful volunteers! I just wanted to drop a quick note to you all thanking you for all the hard work that you have put in at the roundhouse complex. Wednesday we start a long a waited for and very hard earned historic moment in our organization as we begin 6 day a week operations. We have all worked so hard and for so long to make this leap from rescue to reclamation to restoration and now we can stand tall and proudly show off our work as we move into the full time operation of a professional museum and major tourist attraction for Siouxland.

We are regularly receiving e-mails, phone calls and being stopped on the street being asked what is planned and what do we have going on. The word IS getting out and people are taking notice and are very surprised at what we have to offer. I personally heard the phrase; “best kept secret in Sioux City” used 3 times last weekend in my travels around town. The best part is…the secret is out of the bag! We have a lot more to do and a lot more to learn but with what we have accomplished so far, the sky’s the limit.

Thank you all! Thank your spouses, thank your kids and thank your friends and relatives. There is so much more going on behind the scenes by a supporting cast of hundreds that don’t care to be recognized yet are more than happy to provide assistance when needed without even batting an eye. I’m so blessed and lucky to know you all and am proud to work side by side with you all.

We are leaping full bore into this new and exciting chapter in OUR railroad museum project. Thank you from the bottom of my heart and from all of the staff and board of directors of the Siouxland Historical Railroad Association. Congratulations on this major milestone and may this just be the beginning of a fabulous future.

Congratulations and thank you so very much!

Ken Brown
SHRA Executive Vice-President