Last summer we visited the Golden Spike National Monument where the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroads met to complete the nation’s first transcontinental railroad. Today we visited the eastern beginning of that epic construction project and visited the Union Pacific Railroad Museum on Pearl Street in Council Bluffs, Iowa. We were fascinated with the Building America exhibit on the first floor about the history of the railroad and it’s profound influence on American history, as well as the exhibits about the railroad today on the second floor where Steve had the opportunity experience an engineer’s console simulation. It’s housed in a Carnegie Library and we’ve visited a few of those. Not having had enough railroad fun we headed across the Missouri River to Omaha, Nebraska’s Kenefick Park to see Big Boy No. 4023, the world’s largest steam engine, and Centennial No. 6900, the most powerful diesel-electric locomotive in history. That called for some video for Linus since he wasn’t available for a FaceTime chat at that moment. There’s much more railroad opportunities in these neighboring communities but we’ll save some for our next visit. Meanwhile we’ve discovered another video on the Overlooked Financial and Cultural History of the Transcontinental Railroad and hope to visit the Central Pacific Railroad Museum in Sacramento.
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