South Dakota State Railroad Museum

06/09/2026

Okay, week one of the photo contest is in! I'll be honest, I was expecting a few more photos than this, so we'll make some revisions this week to expand the scope. But in any case, we don't have to worry about voting this week. So congratulations to our first two contributors, Ross Heeren and Jeffery Dale! See each photo for details. An updated PDF will be available in the next day or so, but please keep the photos coming in! The more the merrier and so far we do not have limits for submissions.

06/01/2026

The Rick Mills Memorial Photo Contest is now live! To submit, please read and fill out the PDF linked below. This provides instructions, answers basic questions, and is a fillable document you can download and save. Then attach the completed form and your photo to an email and send it off to [email protected]! Every photo must have a completed submission form. Next Monday we will have the first round of submissions to display on our page. Have fun, stay safe, and good luck!

https://www.sdsrm.com/_files/ugd/1da7d3_9e6f0fc079ce427d8437e93d9cadca47.pdf

12/30/2025

And that's a wrap, folks! 2025 is over tomorrow. Thank you for a great year! Stay tuned as we set up dates and times to retrieve trees, announce the winners of the tree contest, and bring you all updates about what to expect from the museum in 2026. There's a lot in the works!

12/28/2025

Ever see these stickers on a railroad car as a train passes by? A while back the museum partnered with RCP&E to decorate several dozen cars and to have people send in photographs of these cars when they are seen. While our website is sdsrm.com now, the email is still good. I'm building an RCP&E page on the website and would love to use photographs of these cars as people find them. Maybe even load the pictures into a map at some point? Anyway, if you see one of these cars, be sure to photograph it and send both the picture and the location info to [email protected]. Stay safe and have fun!

12/27/2025

Last weekend to enjoy trains, trees in Hill City

12/27/2025

Don't forget the train is still running this weekend too!

🎅 Santa may be heading back to the North Pole, but the magic isn’t over! ❄️✨ Join us for our Winter Express rides as we celebrate the season and roll into the New Year!

Book your tickets for our December 27th or 28th departures at https://www.1880train.com/schedule-tickets/

12/27/2025

Trees and Trains 2025 is almost at an end! If you haven't gotten the chance yet, or would like to get photos for posterity, we will be open on the 27th and 28th from noon to 5. I myself will be working on the model train display for our 2026 opening. After this weekend we'll be closed up for four short months. I'll be sharing progress updates with all our followers on new exhibits and changes to our operations. Thank you for helping to make 2025 such a memorable year!

12/23/2025

Wondering why part of our model train display is blocked off? Well, we're doing some renovating for a big event coming in May! On off days, we are working behind the scenes to give this long-standing exhibit a facelift. Today I (James Willmus) was in the operating pit reinforcing our backdrop. We're going to add another layer of Masonite (hardboard) to the front of the furring strips. This side will represent eastern SD while the other side will represent the Black Hills area. Expect to see periodic progress updates here and on our website, sdsrm.com