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Overview | |
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Parent company | Union Pacific Corporation |
Headquarters | Union Pacific Center at 1400 Douglas Street, Omaha, Nebraska |
Reporting mark | UP (road locomotives), UPP (passenger cars), UPY (yard locomotives) |
Locale | Western, Midwestern and Southern United States |
Dates of operation | 1862–present
|
Technical | |
Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
Length | 32,100 miles (51,700 km) |
Other | |
Website | up.com |
The Union Pacific Railroad( reporting marks UP, UPP, UPY), legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over 32,200 miles (51,800 km) routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United States after BNSF, with which it shares [2] a duopoly on transcontinental freight rail lines in the Western, Midwestern and West South Central United States.
Founded in 1862, the original Union Pacific Rail Road was part of the first transcontinental railroad project, later known as the Overland Route. Over the next century, UP absorbed the Missouri Pacific Railroad, the Western Pacific Railroad, the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad and the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. In 1995, the Union Pacific merged with Chicago and North Western Transportation Company, completing its reach into the Upper Midwest. In 1996, the company merged with Southern Pacific Transportation Company, itself a giant system that was absorbed by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. The Union Pacific Railroad is the principal operating company of the Union Pacific Corporation, which are both headquartered at the Union Pacific Center, in Omaha, Nebraska.
The original company, the "Union Pacific Rail Road", incorporated on July 1, 1862, under the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862. President Abraham Lincoln had approved the act, which authorized railroad construction from the Missouri River to the Pacific to ensure the stability of the Union throughout the American Civil War, [3] but construction did not complete until after that conflict's conclusion. The resulting track ran westward from Council Bluffs, Iowa to meet in Utah the Central Pacific Railroad line, which had been constructed eastward from Sacramento, California. The combined Union Pacific–Central Pacific line became known as the First transcontinental railroad and later the Overland Route.
The line was constructed primarily by Irish labor who had learned their craft during the recent Civil War. [4] Under the guidance of its dominant stockholder Dr. Thomas Clark Durant, the namesake of the city of Durant, Iowa, the first rails were laid in Omaha. [5] The two lines were joined at Promontory Summit, Utah, 53 miles (85 km) west of Ogden on May 10, 1869, hence creating the first transcontinental railroad in North America. [6]
Subsequently, the UP purchased three Mormon-built roads: the Utah Central Railroad extending south from Ogden to Salt Lake City, the Utah Southern Railroad extending south from Salt Lake City into the Utah Valley, and the Utah Northern Railroad extending north from Ogden into Idaho. [7]
The original UP was entangled in the Crédit Mobilier scandal, exposed in 1872. As detailed by the New York Sun, Union Pacific's largest construction company, Crédit Mobilier, had overcharged Union Pacific; the railroad would then pass the inflated costs on to the United States government. To convince the federal government to accept the increased costs, Crédit Mobilier had bribed multiple congressmen. Several prominent UP board members (including Durant) had been involved in the scheme. [8] The ensuing financial crisis of 1873 led to a credit crunch, but not bankruptcy.
As boom followed bust, the Union Pacific continued to expand. A new company, with dominant stockholder Jay Gould, purchased the old on January 24, 1880. Gould already owned the Kansas Pacific (originally called the Union Pacific, Eastern Division, though in essence a separate railroad), and sought to merge it with UP. Through that merger, the original "Union Pacific Rail Road" transformed into "Union Pacific Railway". [9]
Extending towards the Pacific Northwest, Union Pacific built or purchased local lines to reach Portland, Oregon. [10] Towards Colorado, it built the Union Pacific, Denver and Gulf Railway: a system combining narrow-gauge trackage into the heart of the Rockies and a standard gauge line that ran south from Denver, across New Mexico, and into Texas.
The Union Pacific Railway would later declare bankruptcy during the Panic of 1893. The resulting corporate reorganization reversed Gould's name change: Union Pacific "Railway" merged into a new Union Pacific "Railroad". [11] [12]
In the early 20th century, Union Pacific's focus shifted from expansion to internal improvement. Recognizing that farmers in the Central and Salinas Valleys of California grew produce far in excess of local markets, Union Pacific worked with its rival Southern Pacific to develop a spoilage-resistant rail-based transport system. These efforts came culminated in the 1906 founding of Pacific Fruit Express, soon to be the world's largest lessee of refrigerated railcars. [13]
Meanwhile, Union Pacific worked to construct a faster, and more direct substitute for the original climb to Promontory Summit. In 1904, the Lucin cutoff opened, reducing curvature and grades. The original route would eventually be stripped of track in 1942 to provide war scrap. [14]
To attract customers during the Great Depression, Union Pacific's chairman W. Averell Harriman simultaneously sought to "spruce up" the quality of its rolling stock and to make its unique locations more desirable travel destinations. The first effort resulted in the purchase of the first streamlined train: the M-10000. [15] The latter resulted in the Sun Valley ski resort in central Idaho; it opened in 1936 and finally was sold in 1964. [16] [17] Despite the fact that the M-10000 and its successors were among the first diesel locomotives, Union Pacific completed dieselization relatively late. In 1944, UP finally received delivery of its last steam locomotive: Union Pacific 844. [18]
As the 20th century waned, Union Pacific recognized—like most railroads—that remaining a regional railroad would only lead to bankruptcy. On December 31, 1925, UP and its subsidiaries operated 9,834 miles (15,826 km) routes and 15,265 miles (24,567 km) tracks;[ citation needed ] in 1980, these numbers had remained roughly constant (9,266 route-miles and 15,647 track-miles). [19] But in 1982, UP acquired the Missouri Pacific and Western Pacific railroads, and 1988, the Missouri–Kansas–Texas. [20] By 1993, Union Pacific had doubled its system to 17,385 miles (27,978 km) routes.
By then, few large (class I) railroads remained. The same year that Union Pacific merged with the Chicago and North Western (1995), Burlington Northern and ATSF announced merger plans. The impending BNSF amalgamation would leave one mega-railroad in control of the west. To compete, UP merged with Southern Pacific, thereby incorporating D&RGW and Cotton Belt, and forming a duopoly in the West. [20] The merged railroad took the Union Pacific name.
UP [Note 4] | LNP&W | S&EV | P&IN | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1925 [21] [ full citation needed ] | 12,869 | 10 | 3 | |
1933 [21] [ full citation needed ] | 8,639 | 4 | 0.4 | (into UP) |
1944 [21] [ full citation needed ] | 37,126 | 7 | 0.7 | |
1960 [21] [ full citation needed ] | 33,280 | (into UP) | (into UP) | |
1970 [21] [ full citation needed ] | 47,575 | |||
1979 [22] [ full citation needed ] | 73,708 | |||
1993 [22] [ full citation needed ] | 220,697 |
Harry K. McClintock who worked as a Brakeman in Colorado 1917. The Big Rock Candy Mountains
The Union Pacific system includes hundreds of yards. Most are flat yards used for local switching. Other types of yards include intermodal terminals and hump yards. Most UP intermodal terminals are typically ports, but UP also has inland terminals for transfers to trucks, such as the terminal in San Antonio that opened in 2009 [23] [24] or the one in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, that opened in 2014. [25]
In 2006, Union Pacific had 12 major active hump yards: [26]
In the late 2010s, Union Pacific began deactivating hump yards in favor of flat switching. In this, Union Pacific followed the industry-wide trend towards Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR); railway executive Hunter Harrison explained that under PSR, few yards receive enough variegated traffic to necessitate a hump. [29] Union Pacific also closed facilities in Kansas City ("Neff yard"), Hinkle, Oregon, and Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 2019. [30]
Union Pacific has owned some of the most powerful locomotives. These include members of the Challenger-type (including the 3985), and the Northern-type (including the 844), as well as the Big Boy steam locomotives (including the 4014). Union Pacific ordered the first diesel streamliner, the largest fleet of turbine-electric locomotives in the world, and still owns the largest operational diesel locomotive (the 6936). [31]
The yellow paint scheme was introduced in the spring of 1934. Engineers claimed the visibility of yellow would reduce grade crossing accidents. [32] In 1941, UP introduced its yellow and gray color scheme with red highlights, which remains in use today. [33]
The middle two-thirds of the locomotive body is painted Armour Yellow, [34] a color used by Armour and Company on the packaging of its meat products. A thin band of Signal Red divides this from the Harbor Mist Gray (a light gray) used for the body and roof above that point. There is also a thin band of Signal Red along the bottom of the locomotive body, but this color has gradually become yellow as new Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) regulations for reflectorized tape came into effect in 2005; the trucks (painted Aluminum from 1955 to 1982), underframe, fuel tanks and everything else beneath that line are also Harbor Mist Gray. Lettering and numbering are in Signal Red, with black outlines. Most locomotives have white-outlined blue "wings" on the nose, on either side of the renowned shield featuring white lettering on a blue background and, below it, red and white vertical stripes. Beginning in early 2002, a number of units were repainted with a large, billowing American flag with the corporate motto "Building America" on the side, where the 'UNION PACIFIC' lettering is normally positioned.[ citation needed ]
Until 2017, UP operated some locomotives still in the paint scheme of their former railroads. In addition, some locomotives were renumbered by UP, varying in the degree of the previous railroads' logos being eradicated, but always with a yellow patch applied over the locomotive's former number and a new UP number applied on the cab. That allowed UP to number locomotives into its roster without spending the time and money necessary to perform a complete repaint. In May 2015, UP rostered 212 "patches", consisting of:
In 2017, Union Pacific decided to repaint all locomotives which were not in the current corporate colors. As of March 2018 [update] , only 41 locomotives remained unpainted. [35]
From the second half of 2005 to the summer of 2006, UP unveiled a new set of six EMD SD70ACe locomotives in "Heritage Colors", painted in schemes reminiscent of railroads acquired by the Union Pacific Corporation since the 1980s. The engine numbers match the year that the predecessor railroad became part of the Union Pacific system. The locomotives commemorate the Missouri Pacific with UP 1982, the Western Pacific with UP 1983, the Missouri–Kansas–Texas with UP 1988, the Chicago and North Western with UP 1995, the Southern Pacific with UP 1996, and the Denver and Rio Grande Western with UP 1989. [36]
In October 2005, UP unveiled SD70ACe 4141, commissioned in honor of George Bush. The locomotive has "George Bush 41" on the sides and its paint scheme resembles that of Air Force One. It was sent into storage in 2007, but returned in 2018 to power Bush's funeral train. It was donated to the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum on November 8, 2019. [37] [38]
On March 31, 2010, UP dedicated a specially painted GE ES44AC locomotive commemorating the centennial of the Boy Scouts of America. [39]
On September 28, 2010, UP dedicated a specially painted GE ES44AC locomotive, as a tribute to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. [40]
On October 19, 2017, Union Pacific unveiled SD70AH 1943, "The Spirit of the Union Pacific", which is painted in a scheme to honor the United States armed forces.
On June 6, 2019, Union Pacific unveiled SD70ACe 1111, the "Powered By Our People" unit. [41]
In April 2021, Union Pacific repainted an SD70M into a commemorative paint scheme called "We Are ONE" to honor Juneteenth and Pride Month. [42]
UP also has a collection of locomotives painted for Operation Lifesaver, a rail safety organization founded in 1970. [43]
![]() | This section needs to be updated.(January 2022) |
As of October 2013, the Union Pacific had 8,185 locomotives on its active roster. The locomotive fleet consists of 43 different models and had an average age of 17.8 years. [44] According to Union Pacific, this is the largest fleet of diesel-electric locomotives in the US. [45]
Type | Quantity |
---|---|
B40-8 | 91 |
C40-8 | 333 |
C40-8W | 50 |
C41-8W | 154 |
C4460AC | 80 |
C44-9W | 274 |
C44AC/CTE | 1,485 |
C45AC/CTE | 943 |
C6044AC | 176 |
C60AC | 75 |
GP15-1 | 160 |
GP38-2 | 664 |
GP38AC | 2 |
GP39-2 | 49 |
GP40 | 15 |
GP40-2 | 142 |
GP40-2P | 2 |
GP40M-2 | 65 |
GP50 | 48 |
GP60 | 194 |
MP15AC | 41 |
MP15DC | 102 |
SD40-2 | 505 |
SD60 | 85 |
SD60M | 560 |
SD70ACe | 321 |
SD70M | 1,445 |
SD9043AC | 371 |
SW1500 | 18 |
Union Pacific continues to use a small number of "heritage" steam locomotives and early streamlined diesel locomotives. This equipment is used on special charters (excursions). [46] [47]
Type | Quantity |
---|---|
4-8-8-4 Big Boy | 1 |
4-8-4 FEF-3 | 1 |
E9A | 2 |
E9B | 1 |
Union Pacific maintains a fleet of low-emissions locomotives. Most are used in Los Angeles basin rail yards, to satisfy an air quality agreement with the local authorities. [48] [49]
Type | Quantity |
---|---|
2GS14B | 1 |
GP22T4 | 10 |
MP20B | 13 |
3GS21B | 59 |
PR30C | ≥6 |
GG20GE | 21 |
Others | ≤71 |
According to UP's 2007 Annual Report to Investors, at the end of 2007 it had more than 50,000 employees, 8,721 locomotives, and 94,284 freight cars.
Broken down by specific type of car, owned and leased:
In addition, it owns 6,950 different pieces of maintenance of way work equipment. At the end of 2007, the average age of UP's locomotive fleet was 14.8 years, the freight car fleet 28 years.
UP was ranked 134th on the 2019 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue and had 41,967 employees. The president of Union Pacific since 2015 is Lance Fritz. [50]
Union Pacific has been rated the worst company to work for in 2019 by 247wallst.com, citing CEO Lance Fritz's 12% approval rating and the 22% recommendation rating from Glassdoor.com. [51] [52]
When Union Pacific bought out the Chicago & North Western in 1995, it inherited the railroad's Metra commuter rail services in the Chicago metropolitan area: the UP/North, UP/Northwest, and UP/West lines, all of which operate from the Ogilvie Transportation Center (the former North Western Station–a name still used by many Chicago residents). In order to ensure uniformity across the Chicago area commuter rail system, trains are branded as Metra services and use Metra equipment. However, Union Pacific crews continue to operate the trains under a purchase-of-service agreement. [53] [54]
Between 1869 and 1971, Union Pacific operated passenger service throughout its historic "Overland Route". These trains ran between Chicago and Omaha on the Chicago & Northwestern trackage starting in 1936. Disputes over trackage rights and passenger revenues with the C&NW prompted the UP to switch to the Milwaukee Road for the handling of its streamliner trains between Chicago and Omaha beginning in late 1955. The last intercity passenger train operated by UP was the westbound City of Los Angeles, arriving at LA Union Station on May 2. [55] Since then, Union Pacific has satisfied its common carrier requirements by hosting Amtrak trains. [Note 5]
Many Amtrak and commuter rail routes use Union Pacific rails. This list excludes the commuter services the company directly operates in Chicago (see above).
On June 28, 2004, a UP train collided with an idle BNSF train in a San Antonio suburb. In the course of the derailment, a 90-ton tank car carrying liquified chlorine was punctured. As the chlorine vaporized, a toxic "yellow cloud" formed, killing three and causing 43 hospitalizations. The costs of cleanup and property damaged during the incident exceeded $7 million. [75]
Investigations of the Macdona incident revealed several serious safety lapses on the part of the Union Pacific and its employees, including employees not following the company's own safety rules. [76] While the immediate cause of the derailment was the UP crew's "fatigue", chlorine tank cars had been improperly placed near the front of the train, a danger in the case of derailment. [77]
The Macdona incident was not the first derailment in the San Antonio area. Between May and November 1994, Union Pacific trains derailed five times, killing at least 4 people. [78] Between June 2004 and March 2005, 10 trains derailed, killing as many people. [79]
In the aftermath of Macdona, the Federal Railroad Administration signed a compliance agreement with the railroad in which the railroad promised to rectify the "notable deficiencies" that regulators found. [76] [79] But the relative impunity UP seemed to exhibit regarding the derailment led to suggestions that the FRA was far "too cozy...to the railroads." [76] In March 2005, Texas Governor Rick Perry supported a plan to reroute trains around large urban population centers in Texas, including San Antonio, but such a plan was purely voluntary and had no timetable associated. [79]
Trains have continued to derail in the area [80] [81] [82] including an incident in June 2009 where tank cars containing chlorine and petroleum naptha xylene derailed, but did not spill. [83] [84] [ needs update ]
![]() | This section may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies.(June 2022) |
The City of San Jose, California, threatened Union Pacific with a lawsuit in 2019 after years of complaints about transient and graffiti blight going unaddressed. For the first time in many years, Union Pacific cleaned out along the tracks starting in November 2019. San Jose Councilman Sergio Jimenez said "The reality is that Union Pacific has not been a good neighbor". [85]
San Jose's mayor Sam Liccardo said
"At any given conference of mayors, you won't hear anyone expressing confidence that Union Pacific will respond nimbly or collaboratively," and "But we are hopeful that the (memorandum of understanding) will turn a page on Union Pacific's behavior in the past to enable a more collaborative relationship going forward." [86]
The Mercury News reports that company has been uncooperative and non responsive to working together, such as failing to come through with graffiti abatement as Union Pacific had promised the city. [85]
In 2022, Legislators in Utah brought forth two separate bills specifically aimed at Union Pacific. The first, HB181, was raised after some municipalities encountered resistance from Union Pacific when attempting to upgrade rail crossings. In Logan, Utah, Union Pacific altered a construction agreement to require the city to pay maintenance fees in perpetuity for an upgraded crossing, a mandate which was against state code. [87] The proposed legislation would make it easier for municipalities to get crossing improvements approved, and clarifies which party must pay associated maintenance costs. The second bill, HB405, would have required Union Pacific to replace their ageing fleet of Tier 0 switching locomotives with hydrogen or electric engines by 2028, due to Utah having very poor air quality in winter months. According to Utah Senator Schultz, Union Pacific was uncooperative on the switching locomotive bill if Utah did not drop the railroad crossings bill. Ultimately, HB181 passed, and HB405 was dropped after Union Pacific made voluntary commitments to replace several tier 0 switching locomotives with less polluting tier 2 locomotives, as well as to test some all electric ones in the Utah Roper Rail Yard. [88] [89]
In Eugene, Oregon, where pollution from a century-old rail yard has been seeping into groundwater, the UP and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality launched a study of ground contamination in 2008. The pollutants are mostly petroleum hydrocarbons, industrial solvents, and metals. [90]
In 2007, Union Pacific Railroad worked with the US EPA to develop a way to reduce locomotive exhaust emissions. They discovered that adding an oxidation catalyst filtering canister to the diesel engine's exhaust manifold and using ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel would reduce particulate emissions by about half, unburned hydrocarbons by 38 percent, and carbon monoxide by 82 percent. [91]
The company's Fuel Master program rewards locomotive engineers who save the most fuel each month. The program has saved the company millions of dollars, much of which has been returned to the engineers. In 2006, the program's founder, Wayne Kennedy, received the John H. Chafee Environmental Award, and the program was recognized by Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta. [92]
In January 2018, a former waste water operator at Union Pacific Albina Yard in Portland, Oregon, employed by the railroad's contractor Mott MacDonald negligently released thousands of gallons of oil into the environment. The operator was distracted by a cell phone and allowed the tank to overflow for over an hour. An engineering firm hired by Union Pacific estimates 1,800 U.S. gallons (6,800 liters) of it was released into nearby Willamette River, not including the spill that was captured by the containment booms. Employees of United States Environmental Protection Agency who were working at facilities nearby placed booms to contain the oil spill. Federal prosecutors have charged the operator Robert LaRue Webb II with violation of the Clean Water Act for releasing the oil into the environment. Webb plead guilty in August 2019 [93] and was sentenced to two years probation and a $2,500 fine. [94] [95] [96]
In 2016, the Union Pacific Railroad Co. was named as a defendant in a lawsuit seeking cleanup of a contaminated rail yard site that operated in Lafayette, Louisiana, from the late 1800s until the 1960s. [97]
In 2020, Houston residents living near a Union Pacific Railroad Company rail yard filed lawsuits against the Union Pacific. These lawsuits followed the finding by the State of Texas of a higher-than-expected incidence of certain cancers in residents living close to the yard. [98] A State of Texas report released in 2021 identified an additional cancer cluster of lymphoblastic leukemia in children. [99]
Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern are the largest owner-partners of EMP, a domestic freight interline intermodal freight transport service that rents and moves more than 35,000 53-foot containers and chassis throughout North America. Other partners in the freight company include CN Railway, CP Railway, I&M Rail Link, Iowa Interstate Railroad, Wisconsin Central Ltd., and Kansas City Southern Railway.
The Union Pacific Railroad Museum is a former Carnegie library [103] in Council Bluffs, Iowa, that houses artifacts, photographs, and documents that trace the development of the railroad and the American West. The company pays upkeep on the privately owned building, which houses part of Union Pacific's corporate collection, one of the oldest in the United States. Holdings include weapons from the late 19th and 20th centuries, outlaw paraphernalia, a sampling of the immigrants' possessions, and a photograph collection comprising more than 500,000 images. [104] [105]
North America's first transcontinental railroad was a 1,911-mile (3,075 km) continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa, with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive US land grants. Building was financed by both state and US government subsidy bonds as well as by company issued mortgage bonds. The Western Pacific Railroad Company built 132 miles (212 km) of track from the road's western terminus at Alameda/Oakland to Sacramento, California. The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California (CPRR) constructed 690 miles (1,110 km) east from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. The Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) built 1,085 miles (1,746 km) from the road's eastern terminus at the Missouri River settlements of Council Bluffs and Omaha, Nebraska, westward to Promontory Summit.
The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, often shortened to Rio Grande, D&RG or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, was an American Class I railroad company. The railroad started as a 3 ft narrow-gauge line running south from Denver, Colorado, in 1870. It served mainly as a transcontinental bridge line between Denver, and Salt Lake City, Utah. The Rio Grande was also a major origin of coal and mineral traffic.
A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single railroad or over those owned or controlled by multiple railway companies along a continuous route. Although Europe is crisscrossed by railways, the railroads within Europe are usually not considered transcontinental, with the possible exception of the historic Orient Express. Transcontinental railroads helped open up unpopulated interior regions of continents to exploration and settlement that would not otherwise have been feasible. In many cases they also formed the backbones of cross-country passenger and freight transportation networks. Many of them continue to have an important role in freight transportation and some like the Trans-Siberian Railway even have passenger trains going from one end to the other.
BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, 32,500 miles (52,300 km) of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that provide rail connections between the western and eastern United States. BNSF trains traveled over 169 million miles in 2010, more than any other North American railroad.
CSX Transportation, known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates on approximately 21,000 route miles (34,000 km) of track. The company operates as the leading subsidiary of CSX Corporation, a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida.
The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The company operates 19,420 route miles in 22 eastern states, the District of Columbia, and had rights in Canada over the Albany to Montréal route of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Norfolk Southern Railway is the leading subsidiary of the Norfolk Southern Corporation.
The Southern Pacific was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the names Southern Pacific Railroad, Southern Pacific Company and Southern Pacific Transportation Company.
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The railroad reached the Kansas–Colorado border in 1873 and Pueblo, Colorado, in 1876. To create a demand for its services, the railroad set up real estate offices and sold farmland from the land grants that it was awarded by Congress.
The Missouri Pacific Railroad, commonly abbreviated as MoPac, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. MoPac was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers. In 1967, the railroad operated 9,041 miles of road and 13,318 miles of track, not including DK&S, NO&LC, T&P, and its subsidiaries C&EI and Missouri-Illinois.
The Belt Railway Company of Chicago, headquartered in Bedford Park, IL, is the largest switching terminal railroad in the United States. It is co-owned by six Class I railroads — BNSF Railway, Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific Railway, CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern Railway, and Union Pacific Railroad — each of which uses the switching and interchange facilities of the BRC. Owner lines and other railroads bring their trains to the Belt Railway to be separated, classified, and re-blocked into new trains for departure. The BRC also provides rail terminal services to approximately 100 local manufacturing industries. The company employs about 440 people, including its own police force.
Southern Pacific 4449, also known as the Daylight, is the only surviving example of Southern Pacific Railroad's "GS-4" class of 4-8-4 "Northern" type steam locomotives and one of only two GS-class locomotives surviving, the other being "GS-6" 4460 at the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri. GS is an abbreviation of "General Service" or "Golden State," a nickname for California.
Spokane, Portland & Seattle 700 is the oldest and only surviving example of the class "E-1" 4-8-4 "Northern" type steam locomotive and the only surviving original Spokane, Portland and Seattle steam locomotive. It was built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in May 1938. Nearly identical to the class "A-3" Northerns built for Northern Pacific Railway, it burns oil instead of coal.
Union Station, also known as Ogden Union Station, is a train station in Ogden, Utah, at the west end of Historic 25th Street, just south of the Ogden Intermodal Transit Center. Formerly the junction of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads, its name reflects the common appellation of train stations whose tracks and facilities are shared by railway companies.
Oregon Railroad and Navigation Co. 197 is a 4-6-2 "Pacific" type steam locomotive built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1905 for the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (OR&N). It has been owned by the City of Portland since 1958, and since mid-2012 it resides at the Oregon Rail Heritage Center where it can be viewed by the public.
The Albina Yard is a 200-acre (81 ha) rail yard located in the Albina District of Portland, Oregon, currently operated by the Union Pacific Railroad. One of several yards operated by the Union Pacific Railroad in Portland, as of year 2000 the Albina yard processes an average of 1,200 rail cars a day.
The history of the Union Pacific Railroad stretches from 1862 to the present. For operations of the current railroad, see Union Pacific Railroad; for the holding company that owns the current railroad, see Union Pacific Corporation.
The history of the Southern Pacific stretches from 1865 to 1998. For the main page, see Southern Pacific Transportation Company; for the former holding company, see Southern Pacific Rail Corporation.
The Union Pacific Heritage Fleet includes commemorative and historic equipment owned by the Union Pacific Railroad. The fleet currently consists of two historic steam locomotives, three historic diesel locomotives, seventeen modern diesel locomotives in historic or commemorative paint schemes and nearly four dozen passenger cars used on office car specials and excursion trains.
Barstow Yard is a classification yard operated by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) in Barstow, California. With 48 directional tracks and a total area of approximately 600 acres (240 ha), it is the second largest classification yard west of the Rocky Mountains after the JR Davis Yard. Today, almost all freight traffic to and from Southern California runs through the junction.
This aid was given to two powerful companies, viz., to The Union Pacific Railroad Company, building from Omaha, on the Missouri river, West; and to The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California, building from Sacramento, East.
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: CS1 maint: location (link) Text taken from OCR; may be corrupt.gould.
'Hump yards are very complicated and expensive and work when you're bringing things in from lots of directions'...'The more you do preblocking, the more you don't need the complexity-solving machine that is a hump yard.'
NEW DRESS FOR SPRING in 1934. Since that time, all streamliner passenger equipment has been painted the ... Yellow is widely used where high visibility is desired as a safety feature. Union Pacific engineers claim that use of yellow on U.P. trains will further reduce the incidence of grade crossing accidents, especially at night. Nighttime visibility is increased still more by use of red reflection Union
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: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Today Union Pacific operates the largest diesel-electric fleet in the United States.
Library resources about Union Pacific Railroad |