Great history of the Union Pacific Railroad. There are interactive exhibits and arrows on the floor to guide you through the museum. Items from Lincoln's Presidential rail car are on display, also. Entrance to the museum is the basement where you walk into a small gift shop. The employee gives guidance on the best route to take through the museum. Admission is free; donations suggested.

Superb museum in a historic old library with artistic windows and architecture. Fantastic display of memorabilia, with displays of timelines, changing trends, and what it meant to be a passenger or worker then. Some interactive/speaking exhibits, plenty to keep the kids occupied. One of the best rail line museums I've been to. Go and see, this is great.

This is a wonderful museum with many hands on interactive exhibits to learn more about the history of the railroad and westward expansion. It has so much information; we spent a couple hours and could have learned more, but it was the second tour we did on the same day and we were getting tired from standing for hours. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and recommend it for all ages.

Rail and Union Pacific fans will no doubt enjoy this free museum but as the building was originally a Carnegie Library, it is worth visiting for the architecture as well as the stained glass windows have been left intact and the building beautifully restored. This is literally next door to the Squirrel Cage Jail so easy to visit both. Bayliss Park is just across the road as well. If staying in Omaha, you can get to downtown Council Bluffs by bus and walk to multiple tourist sites. There isn’t a cafe onsite but multiple options just down the road for coffee, lunch.

After touring the sights of Council Bluffs; Golden Spike Monument, 1869 Dodge House & 1939 Lincoln Monument, we parked near the 1890 Bayliss fountain and entered the basement of the 1905 Carnegie Library building. This 2003 museum provides an extensive history of building the 1907 mile railroad extending from Council Bluffs to Sacramento. Surveying, grading and laying the 4’ 81/2” gauge track over a land dominated by buffalo, Indigenous tribes and mountains. Further halls showed the expansion over the decades with telegraph, town building, bandits/police, passenger travel with Pullman Cars and fine dining. This excellent museum ends with descriptions of modern railroad operation and maintenance.