For one night each October, the grand concourse of Omaha's old Union Station fills with people who are not there to read the exhibits. They come in costume, or not, and they wander a building that was designed to move thousands of travelers a day and now moves them through a museum instead. The event is called Durham After Dark, and on Thursday, October 22, 2026, it takes over The Durham Museum at 801 South 10th Street for four hours of adults-only Halloween programming.
The premise is simple and a little strange, which is exactly what makes it work. The museum's historic train cars, normally a family attraction where children climb through sleeper berths and imagine overnight journeys, get a Halloween transformation for the season. Cobwebs, skeletons and spiders take over the fleet. The museum is careful to note that it is not too scary, but after dark, with no strollers in the aisles, the effect is different from a daytime visit.
That the trains are the centerpiece is fitting, because they are the reason the building exists. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act, creating the Union Pacific Railroad and fixing its eastern terminus at Council Bluffs, Iowa. Because there was no bridge across the Missouri River at the time, construction actually began at 7th and Davenport Streets in Omaha and headed west. Several stations came and went in the city's early years. Construction on the Union Station that stands today began on July 29, 1929, on the site of the 1899 station, as rapidly rising passenger traffic convinced Union Pacific that it needed a building worthy of its image.
The railroad hired Gilbert Stanley Underwood, one of the finest architects working in the Art Deco style, and gave him free rein. He used a terra cotta exterior overlay and involved himself in every artistic decision, from the ceiling of the Main Waiting Room down to the door handles on the ticket counter. Peter Kiewit Sons' built the steel-framed structure. After twenty months and $3.5 million, the 124,000-square-foot building was finished, and it opened to great fanfare on January 15, 1931. It quickly became one of the busiest stations in the nation. At its peak, 64 passenger trains and some 10,000 passengers used the facility every day. The focal point, the Main Waiting Room, now the Suzanne and Walter Scott Great Hall, measures 160 feet by 72 feet and is spanned by a 60-foot-high ceiling of sculptured plaster.
The train cars parked at the museum carry their own history. The National Command 1202 is one of only 12 in the "National" series of Pullman sleeper cars built for Union Pacific in 1956. It contains six roomettes, four double bedrooms, and six open bench seat sections with upper berths. The car has been on display at the museum since the 1990s, and it has been restored with help from the community: in 2019 the museum launched a crowdfunding effort called the National Command Club to re-carpet, re-upholster and revitalize the car, a $55,000 project supported by a $25,000 lead gift from Union Pacific. The campaign exceeded its $30,000 goal, raising $31,957.98, and the car reopened on May 10, 2019, timed to the 150th anniversary of the Golden Spike. Donors at the private level had plaques placed inside the train designating sponsorship of individual bench seats, and all contributors were listed on a "patron passenger manifest" sign outside the car.
Durham After Dark is not only a train tour. The evening also brings live entertainment from Omaha Circus Arts, a local company whose repertoire runs from fire dancers and LED jugglers to stiltwalkers, human statues and projection mapping, alongside more traditional circus acts. Tarot readers are on hand for anyone who wants a glimpse of the future between exhibits. The museum has described the night as a chance to sip "BOOS" at a speakeasy, shop from local vendors, and see objects from its creepy collections that are not normally on public display, all while wandering the museum at your own pace with no kids underfoot. Frightfully themed food comes from the historic Soda Fountain, and past listings have noted that a drink ticket and popcorn bar were included with admission.
The event has become popular enough that the museum warns against showing up empty-handed. Its Halloween page notes that previous 21-and-over events have sold out, so advance tickets are strongly encouraged, with walk-up tickets available on the day only if space allows. Tickets are $25 for museum members and $35 for non-members, with the member discount applied during online registration after clicking the checkout button. Costumes are welcomed but not required, and the museum bills the dress code as "creepy or clever."
There is a certain logic to holding a haunted evening in a building this old and this theatrical. Union Station was built to feel monumental, and it still does: the Art Deco lines, the preserved neon, the vast hall that once held crowds waiting for trains that would take them across the country. On an October night, with cobwebs in the sleeper cars and performers in the Great Hall, the museum's own history does much of the atmospheric work. The trains are not a haunted-house prop. They are the real thing, restored by the people who ride them, and for one night they are open after dark to adults who want to see them that way.
Durham After Dark runs Thursday, October 22, 2026, from 6 to 10 p.m. at The Durham Museum, 801 South 10th Street in Omaha. Advance tickets are available through the museum, which can also be reached at 402-444-5071.