1st Annual Rock N Rails Music Festival - Recap

WOW! That's really about all we can say. WOW! What a spectacular day. We had perfect weather, awesome bands, excellent music and a fantastic crowd. Matt Merk, Milwaukee Railroad Shops Historic District Executive Director said, "We had about 800 people come out to the event and for many of those this was their first time visiting the railroad museum complex. Between the regular museum display's, the beautiful weather and all the great bands all of our visitors were very impressed with what we have to offer and were very excited about coming out and many said they would definitely make a return visit in the future." Merk also continued saying, "I am so proud of our volunteers. Their friendliness, professionalism and just plain pride and excitement in showing off all their hard work to the community is very contagious and the visitors pick up on that honest we're-glad-to-see-you feeling and it just makes the entire experience that much better for our guests."

Along with the great music, food and refreshments many visitors were treated to a ride on the 90 foot roundhouse locomotive turntable. While it is not a very fast ride many were thrilled just the same and impressed that this 95 year old piece of railroad history is still alive and well.

Thank you to everyone that attended our first ever music festival. Because of the initial success of this event there are already talks underway for repeating this next year and excitement about adding other such events to next years schedule. We love the Siouxland area and it's families and are trying hard to become a family fun-spot for many more of our communities cultural events.

Again, thank you for your support and we can't wait for you to stop by and say hello.