Moark Regional Railroad Museum will celebrate its 30th anniversary and Amtrak’s 50th anniversary during the 12th Iron Horse Festival 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Saturday.
Admission is free, but donations to help maintain the historic 1928 Frisco Depot, which houses the museum, are greatly appreciated.
The Train Shop is filled with model trains, track, layout accessories and train T-shirts. All proceeds are used to maintain the museum. Organizers say Saturday is also a good time to shop for Christmas gifts. Old Model Railroad magazines will be given away.
More volunteers are needed to maintain and operate the museum. Anyone interested can apply Saturday or call 573-785-4539 and leave a message.
Visitors will see exhibits covering 149 years of railroad history in Poplar Bluff, Southeast Missouri and Northeast Arkansas, beginning with the arrival of the Iron Mountain Railroad in 1872.
Two HO scale train layouts, an elevated G scale train, a steam engine bell and a new rail ferry display capture the interest of visitors.
Outside, visitors may walk through a Missouri Pacific caboose and walk around a Frisco caboose and a Union Pacific mail/baggage car. Painting of the exterior and interior of the MoPac caboose was nearly completed during the past year by volunteers. The seats were re-upholstered.
A lighted signal tower, a whistle sign, switches and railroad crossing lights can also be seen, along with the Tornado Memorial Monument erected by the Poplar Bluff History Museum. Eighty-six people died on May 9, 1927, when a tornado destroyed Downtown Poplar Bluff and the 1901 Frisco Depot.
Improvements during the past year totaled approximately $2,500.
Members of the Missouri Southern Railroad Club worked two years to create the museum after the Poplar Bluff Police Department moved out of the Frisco Depot in 1989. It was the home of the police department for 12 years.
Jim Mottram was among the early museum leaders before he died from cancer in 1994. He was instrumental in creating a layout which has been expanded to 33 feet long and has three American trains operating on it. Part of it is 40 years old.
“My husband started the layout in our basement in the early 1980s and finished it in the museum,” said his wife, Judy, during a recent museum visit.
Two English trains travel on a 16-foot layout. Richard Brosseau of Silva started collecting English trains while serving as a missionary in New Zealand. He and his wife, HaeJa, donated the trains and layout to the museum.
A.J. White, who has volunteered at the museum for 30 years, will have his steam-operated car and calliope on display during the Iron Horse Festival. He can tell visitors about the early planning for the museum and how the two cabooses and mail/baggage car were obtained from the Union Pacific Railroad and moved to the site.
Among other railroad club members involved in opening the museum in 1991 were Dan Kinder, Richard Cummings, Lee Monroe, Kevin Brown, Robert Manns and Larry Boyles.
In a 1990 newspaper article, Kinder was correct in saying, “We think the museum will generate a lot of visitors to Poplar Bluff. Railroad enthusiasts will travel a long distance to see and experience something like this.”
The museum had 1,600 visitors in the 2018-19 fiscal year, but the coronavirus caused attendance to drop to 1,250 in 2019-20 and 965 in 2020-21.
Since July 1, the museum has had 623 visitors, including 370 during three hours when the Union Pacific steam engine 1410 arrived on Friday, Aug. 27. In addition to visitors from 31 Missouri cities and 12 Arkansas cities, there were 90 visitors from 16 states — Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, South Dakota, Arizona, Colorado, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New York.
Amtrak began operating passenger trains in the United States in 1971. With 300 trains traveling to 500 stations daily, Amtrak had 32.5 million passengers in the year prior to the pandemic.
Two Texas Eagle trains stop nightly at the historic 1910 Iron Mountain station on Second Street in Poplar Bluff. The southbound train leaves Chicago, Illinois, and arrives here at 11:42 p.m. and the northbound train leaves San Antonio, Texas, and arrives here at 2:44 a.m.
The Poplar Bluff Historic Depot Restoration Corporation will have a pancake and sausage breakfast from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday.
More Amtrak information is available at the museum or by calling 573-686-2241 and leaving a message.
Current museum officers are president David Silverberg of Poplar Bluff, vice president and Train Shop manager Richard White of Grandin and secretary-treasurer Jeanne Garrett of Poplar Bluff. Other board members are tour guide Steve Kinder of Poplar Bluff, layout coordinator Dean “Doc” Scallion of Piggott, Arkansas, Ryan Cline of Neelyville, Chris Lavender of Ellsinore and A. J. White of Poplar Bluff.
The support of volunteers, members, donors, Train Shop customers, city officials, Downtown Poplar Bluff and the Daily American Republic is greatly appreciated.