Museum to highlight railway days

COUNCIL BLUFFS — “Next stop, Council Bluffs.”

At one time, Americans traveled across the country primarily by train, and the Union Pacific Railroad Museum is moving forward with a large exhibit to re-create those days. The exhibit is called “America Travels by Rail.”

“It's a new, permanent exhibit being developed, an exhibit that talks entirely about passenger trains,” said Beth Lindquist, director of the museum at 200 Pearl St.

The exhibit will be located on the south side of the top floor.

“The entire area will be redone,” Lindquist said. “The exhibit will talk about the heyday of passenger travel and streamline trains. A lot of trains for the Union Pacific were called Streamliners.”

The look of the exhibit still is being fine-tuned, Lindquist said. It will offer viewers a glimpse of what a passenger coach car, a lounge car and a dining car looked and felt like during the height of rail travel.

“It will give the visitors a sense of what it was like to be in those cars,” she said.

The idea for the exhibit came up about three years ago when museum officials discussed how to capture this era of railroad travel, Lindquist said. There is currently a small museum section that deals with passenger travel, she said.

The project was funded with grants and donations, Lindquist said.

A company called Proto Productions, which submitted the lowest bid of $343,000 for the project, was approved by the Council Bluffs City Council this week to fabricate and install the pieces.

“We hope to open by late spring,” Lindquist said.

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