Where is Railswest Railroad Museum located?

Railswest Railroad Museum is located in Council Bluffs, IA.

How do I get tickets to Railswest Railroad Museum?

Tickets and current schedules are available on the operator's official website at https://www.thehistoricalsociety.org/index.html.

Photo by Smallbones, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Railswest Railroad Museum

Council Bluffs, IA

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Upcoming Events

No ticketed events are currently listed for Railswest Railroad Museum. Many heritage operators publish schedules seasonally or run on regular open hours instead of dated events.

Check the operator’s website for current hours and special runs, or subscribe to event alerts and we’ll email you when something is scheduled.

About Railswest Railroad Museum

Inside the restored 1899 Rock Island passenger depot at 16th Avenue and South Main Street, visitors view static rolling stock—including Union Pacific locomotive 814, Chicago, Burlington and Quincy locomotive 915, a 1953 Plymouth switch engine, an Omaha lounge car, a Union Pacific boxcar, and Railway Post Office car 5908—alongside an extensive HO‑scale model railroad.

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History

The historic depot that now houses RailsWest Railroad Museum opens in 1899 as a Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad passenger station, later sharing service with the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific. After passenger service ends in 1971, the building is preserved and eventually restored by the Historical Society of Pottawattamie County, which assumes operation of the museum. The society maintains the 1899 Rock Island Depot as a static exhibition space, featuring an HO‑scale model railroad and historic rolling stock, but offering no passenger rides.

The Trains

RailsWest displays Union Pacific locomotive 814, Chicago, Burlington and Quincy locomotive 915, a 1953 Plymouth Locomotive Works switch engine, a Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Omaha lounge car, a Union Pacific boxcar, a Union Pacific Railway Post Office car 5908, and several Rock Island and Burlington‑Quebec cabooses. The museum’s static collection sits beside the historic 1899 Rock Island depot and adjacent Union Pacific, BNSF, and Iowa Interstate tracks, providing a fenced‑in area for railfanning.

Nearby

Iowa's Railswest Railroad Museum sits about 4 mi from the Durham Museum at Omaha Union Station and the Omaha Zoo Railroad, with the Nebraska Railroad Museum about 36 mi out.