Editor’s note: This is another in The Reporter’s occasional series of day trips two hours or less from Rockdale:
Sometimes day trips are no farther than your own backyard or, well, maybe a little farther like just downtown.
The Rockdale I&GN Depot Museum is filled with all things train, such as conductor and porter hats, train lanterns and dishes used in the train’s dining car.
A station master’s work area with a cluttered desk is only missing the person behind the desk.
In another area of the museum there is memorabilia of Rockdale and other area towns. There is a picture of the big, old Rockdale School with the students out front, a replica of a barber shop that was once at 211 East Cameron.
But there is more to see outside the depot building which opened in 2006 after a major restoration project.
There is a working blacksmith shop out back that on special occasions has a blacksmith in the forge.
A red caboose, which was found on a farm outside of Kyle, sits behind the depot that visitors can tour and a dining car that holds a record that dates back to the 1940s.
The dining car on non-functioning tracks behind the depot was rescued from neglect in Laredo.
Before it was left to languish in South Texas, the dining car had years of noble service.
Pat Jackson of the Rockdale Historical Society that runs the depot related a tale about the old dining car.
It was on the Cheyenne Mountain train that ran between St. Louis and Denver. During the World War II years the train transported troops.
During that wartime service the car served more meals in one day than any other train dining car ever, she said. “It’s a record that stands to this day.”
The dining car, where you had to make reservations to dine back when it was riding the rails, has a kitchen and a lounge.
The kitchen is all stainless steel and the kitchen equipment ran on steam, “so you can imagine how warm it was in there with three men,” she said.
The Rockdale Historical Society put a lot of work and money into restoring the two train cars that were found by the late Bert Dockall who was a big donor to the museum.
“Railroad ran in his blood,” she said. “He was a railroad engineer.”
In a building behind the depot, which was once the baggage room during the its working days, is a scale model of the town of Rockdale in the 1920s built by the late Nolan Bland. It is complete with trains running around the town.
The museum is at 11 N. Main and is open Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m.
There is no entrance fee, but donations are accepted.
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