Trainland USA

If you are a train enthusiast, this is a great stop. Woo woo! If you’re not, but just want a nice slice of American history ~ all aboard!
I first visited «Red’s» somewhere in the late ‘90s on my first of many, many annual cross-​country trips from the metro-​Phoenix area to the Chicago-​land area and or vice versa. I don’t know if it’s the hours and hours of road-​trippin’ in early summer heat or if this place really does have a magic… but I’m gonna give «magic» the benefit of the doubt.
Every time I visit… I escape «the present» and slip back into my childhood nights around Christmastime… when a Lionel train chugged around a track, puffing white smoke from a heavy black engine. I was fascinated by the light-​violet liquid that my dad let me squeeze from a black eyedropper into that engine… and how it turned into something completely else.
Now…our land has turned into «something completely else» — quite a bit less reliant on trains as a mode of passenger travel as well as freight (though it does still have it’s place and I did recently learn that it’s fairly cost-​efficient & more environmentally friendly to move oil via rail than any other mode of transportation… and actually can be faster too.)
ANYWAY… Getting to «Trainland» is easy — a quick jump north off of I-​80 if you’re on that main road. I’ve also come in from the northwest and easy there as well. Third cornfield on your right, just past the green rusty tractor… kidding!
There’s the former actual Rock Island Passenger Rail Car (green) that houses many trains, artifacts, etc for sale (breathe it in!!) and the actual house where you pay a small amount (most $ 7.50) to wander through a cross-​country tour of the USA. There’s 25 Lionel «O» gauge trains, 4000 ft of track, 2,600 sq ft of display area that depict the development of rail across the U.S. through three eras: frontier, steam and diesel.
We popped through a little early this year and took a chance they’d be open, but no such luck. Memorial Day — Labor Day, daily 12 – 6. I should know that by now! But then again… I’m glad that we stopped in our tracks… to make tracks… footsteps in the snow…
I’ll tell you what — even with late season snow, a dark Iowa sky hanging low — there was that magic. I felt again nostalgic. For Christmases long ago.
PS — «Red» is the name of the farmer ~ «Trainland USA» was his vision, assembled with help of others over the years.