MANLY, Iowa — Construction has begun on the new Manly Junction Railroad Museum just north of the community of Manly. The $7 million museum, the brainchild of Iowa Northern Railway Chairman Dan Sabin, is expected to open in the fourth quarter of 2025. The museum is designed to look like a railroad station and also will also include a trainshed-like structure with three tracks. That portion will be home to Sabin’s E6A No. 630 and E8A No. 652, the last two surviving Rock Island E units. The museum will have a rail connection so equipment can be moved in and out.
Sabin is a long time Rock Island railroader — at one time he was the youngest train dispatcher on the Rock — and has accumulated a substantial collection of railroad artifacts, photographs and memorabilia that will be housed in the new museum. The current museum is housed in a building in downtown Manly.
Manly — about 10 miles north of Mason City, Iowa — was a junction between the Rock Island’s St. Paul-Kansas City main line and its route to Cedar Rapids and West Liberty, Iowa, where it connected to the Rock’s east-west main line from Chicago. Manly was a division point and once had crew quarters, a yard, and a roundhouse and turntable; the latter still survives.
The portion from Manly to Cedar Rapids is now the main line of the Iowa Northern Railway, formed in 1984. A group led by Sabin took over management in 1994. At that time the railroad handled 15,000 revenue cars annually and the average track speed was under 10 mph. Sabin’s group invested millions bringing the line up to a state of good repair and currently handles over 60,000 cars per year. In December 2023 Canadian National announced it was purchasing Iowa Northern, an acquisition still awaiting approval from the federal Surface Transportation Board.
I live Albert Lea and pass through regularly. I wondered what was being built there it is just off hwy 65. Should be a good location.