SIOUX CITY, Iowa — The Big Sioux River, which took down a BNSF Railway bridge on Sunday night, has now shut down an Iowa railroad museum.
The Sioux City Railroad Museum will be closed until further notice because of flooding, the museum announced on its Facebook page, posting multiple photos of standing water in its facilities in the former Milwaukee Road Sioux City Engine Terminal and Car Repair Shops.
The museum sustained “extensive damage to all its buildings from the pressure of the flood waters,” wrote Larry Obermeyer, board president and CEO of the museum’s governing body, the Siouxland Historical Railroad Association. His post accompanied photos showing “extensive damange to the interiors of the Car Shops Learning & Event Center and the Roundhouse Building. You can see the pressure of the flood waters caused the wood floor in the Car Shops building to buckle. … Due to the rapid current of the flood waters, our assessment team was unable to access the other buildings and grounds.”
Donations to help the museum with recovery efforts can be made here.
The river was reported to have crested more than 6 feet above its previous record height on Sunday, which led to a collapse of a section of a BNSF bridge between North Sioux City, S.D., and Sioux City, Iowa [see “BNSF bridge … collapses,” Trains News Wire, June 24, 2024].
So if they weren’t able to enter the buildings to do an assessment, then how do they know the floor in the Car Shops building buckled…yes, it says they have photos, but if they have photos then why couldn’t they enter the building? They must have been able to at least enter it to take the photos in the first place.
It says some of the buildings. They were able to enter the Car Shops Learning and Event Center.