September 12-13 saw Hurricane Ike decimate the Galveston Island Railroad Museum along with the rest of the island and the surrounding coastal region. While most of the locomotives and rolling stock appear to be in decent condition externally, the interior of the passenger coaches, sleepers, and business cars are destroyed. The entire yard was under 8-10 feet of water for about 24 hours. The traction motors on all 4 of the museums diesel/electric locomotives are shot and it's very unlikely that any will ever run again. The interior of all of the buildings is beyond salvaging. While I was there everything in the main building (lobby) was being torn out. What little that could be saved was is a pile outside and behind the lobby. The mold in the buildings is beyond description...

I just don't have the words... I'll let the pictures tell the tale.

Disclaimer: these pictures aren't all that good. I was very busy working

and just getting a few shots where I could. I was also exhausted.

This is the terrace around the main office building before the initial clean-up.

And this is after Carl, Joseph, and I moved about 250 ties and other debris.

Salvaged remnants of the lobby

The main hallway through the museum office building

One of the museum offices

This molding pile of debris was once the model railroad exhibit. Even with my respirator on I couldn't stand

to be in this building for more than a few minutes. The air was so bad that my skin was burning.

Debris-covered vestibule

of a diner car

This diner was sealed from the wind and waves. But, you can clearly see how high the

water got because of the sediment on the table clothes and the toppled chairs and vases.

Here is Carl using his PosiTrack to push MoPac Caboose 13895 further into the yard, under the shed.

Carl tried the same trick with SP 1303, but the brakes were set and frozen. He even tried using

the forks to manually release them. No luck. 1303 is staying where she is for a while.

One of the piles of ties we moved from the museum grounds.

Compare these two pictures  -->

Notice anything missing?

The tank floated off the trucks and landed in the lot next door.

Most of the tank cars had similar issues. 8-10 FEET of water covered the yard during the height of the storm.

One of my favorite locomotives, WBT&S 1,

survived with little to no damage.

SP 314 looks good, too.

CTC 555 also weathered the storm without any real damage

The sole surviving semaphore was blown in half by the 110 mph winds.

For my fellow Grande Fans

The back gate of the yard is littered with trash

that washed up during the storm surge.

The Histrionic Strand District

The Histrionic Strand District

The Histrionic Strand District

Empty rail yard near the wharf

Boats washed up on

I45 on the island

The Causeway

The railroad bridge

appears undamaged

Looking towards the Mainland as I head back to Spring