Ironhorse Days Saturday & Sunday October 13 & 14

Come help us celebrate Old Chief Ironhorse's 103rd birthday this weekend. The railroad museum complex will be open from 10 am to 4 pm both days. Come learn about the sole survivor of a class of 14 locomotives that was originally built in 1909. Great Northern Railway Steam Locomotive #1355 is a National Landmark and is registered on the National Register of Historic Places. This locomotive helped settle the American West and was instrumental in the growth of our great nation. Old Ironhorse was given to the people of Sioux City by the Great Northern Railway as gift and a reminder of it's strong relationships with the railroad.

After sitting on display outside near the Sioux City Auditorium from 1955 until 1984 the City of Sioux City granted ownership of this locomotive to our organization and it's restoration process was begun. Originally the restoration concept was to bring GN 1355 back to life and to steam again. Unfortunately though, financial and insurance constraints along with operational limitations due to its friction bearing design caused us to change the concept from operational to a cosmetic restoration. GN 1355 was completely stripped down, cleaned, fixed and loving restored to it's original 1920's and 30's passenger paint scheme. The volunteers spent countless hours researching and scanning old photos of the locomotive. It has been restored just as if it were to be an operational locomotive. Past engineers and firemen of this great locomotive have complemented us on it's restoration and it's completeness. Countless volunteers, tens of thousands of volunteer man-hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars from grants and donations and a lot of tender loving care have brought this beautiful locomotive back from near oblivion and into the public eyesight once again.

This years event will feature:
* A continuous running slide show of the restoration efforts of the steam locomotive provided by Odell Overgaard.
* Railroad history presentation given by Mr. Francis Serr of Yankton at 11am and 2pm both days in the Preservation Gallery.
* Old Ironhorse GN #1355 will be pulled out of the roundhouse and placed on the turntable from 10am to 3pm on Saturday (this will be the last outdoor display of this locomotive for the year) but it will stay inside the roundhouse on Sunday so folks can go into the cab.
* Steam engine tours.
* Turntable demonstrations will be performed every hour on both days.
* On Sunday we will use our 1943 GE 45 ton diesel locomotive for the turntable demonstrations.
* A courtesy table will be setup to serve coffee, cookies and popcorn.
* We will be continuing to raise funds for our Vision Iowa grant through the train hat donation promotions.
* Motorcar rides will again be available for $2 per ride.
* All of our exhibit buildings will be open
* We will have an Operation Lifesaver display on hand provided by Ryan Schooley of the BNSF Railway.
* The Lionel trains will be running in the orange Milwaukee caboose and the HO scale Nebraska Central Railroad will be in full operation in the Civil Engineering Display Building.


 Grab your friends and relatives and come on down, we can't wait to meet you!