Union Pacific Railroad

The Union Pacific Railroad is the largest railroad in the United States. Its AAR reporting mark is UP. The railroad is wholly owned by Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE:UNP) which also owns Overnite Transportation, a fairly major less-than-truckload shipping carrier. Union Pacific divested itself of Overnite Trucking through an IPO in late 2003 but still owns a sizable stake.Richard K. Davidson,who began his career as a Missouri Pacific brakeman in 1960,has headed Union Pacific Railroad since 1991 and parent Union Pacific Corporation since 1997.James R. Young is president and chief operating officer of the Railroad.

The Union Pacific's route map covers most of the central and western United States, westward of Chicago and New Orleans. It has achieved this size thanks to purchasing a large number of other railroads; notable purchases include the Missouri Pacific, Chicago and Northwestern, Western Pacific and Southern Pacific.

Its chief competitor is the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF), which covers much of the same territory.

Union Pacific has, of this writing, over 33,000 route miles (53,000 km) of track, 47,000 employees, over 7,000 locomotives and over 90,000 freight cars.

History

Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch gang holding up a Union Pacific train.

The Union Pacific Railroad was incorporated on July 1, 1862 in the wake of the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862. The first rails were laid in Omaha, Nebraska. They were part of the railroads which came together at Promontory Summit, Utah in 1869 as the first transcontinental railroad in North America. Subsequently the Union Pacific took over the Utah Central extending south through Salt Lake City, and the Utah & Northern, extending from Ogden through Idaho into Montana, and it built or absorbed local lines, which gave it access to Denver and to Portland, Oregon, and the Pacific Northwest. It acquired the Kansas Pacific (originally called the Union Pacific, Eastern Division, though in essence a separate railroad). It also owned narrow gauge trackage into the heart of the Colorado Rockies and a standard gauge line south from Denver across New Mexico into Texas.

Union Pacific was entangled in the Credit Mobilier scandal of 1872. The railroad's early troubles led to bankruptcy during the 1870s, the result of which was reorganization of the Union Pacific Railroad as the Union Pacific Railway on January 24, 1880. The new company also declared bankruptcy, in 1893, but emerged on July 1, 1897, reverting again to the original name, Union Pacific Railroad. Such minor changes in corporate titles were a common result of reorganization after bankruptcy among American railroads. The recovered railroad was strong enough to take control of Southern Pacific Railroad in 1901 and then was ordered in 1913 by the U.S. Supreme Court to surrender control of the same. The Union Pacific Railroad also founded the Sun Valley Resort in Idaho. The Pacific Electric Company in Los Angeles was a subsidiary of the Union Pacific.

In the 1980s UP moved its corporate headquarters from New York, New York to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.In 1997 they were moved again to Dallas, Texas and finally thereafter to Omaha, Nebraska and into the recently completed Union Pacific Center.

Paint and colors

The Union Pacific's basic paint scheme for its locomotives is the oldest still in use by a major railroad. The bottom two-thirds of the locomotive body is painted Armour Yellow (so-named because it was the color used by the Armour meat company). A thin band of red divides this from the Harbor Mist Gray (a fairly light gray color) used for the body and roof above that point. A red line is also painted at the bottom of the locomotive body; the trucks, underframe, fuel tanks and everything else beneath that line are also painted Harbor Mist Gray. Lettering and numbering is also in red, with black outlines. Some locomotives (historically passenger locomotives, and some recent high power units from 2000) have white-outlined blue "wings" on the nose. More recently, some units have been repainted with a large, billowing Stars and Stripes with the corporate logo "Building America" on the side, where the 'UNION PACIFIC' lettering is normally positioned.

The first version of this scheme was used on the UP's streamlined trains in the 1930s, although a brown was used instead of grey.

Passenger cars, cabooses and other non-freight equipment is also painted in a similar fashion.

Historic locomotives

The UP, uniquely among modern railroads, maintains a small fleet of historic locomotives for special trains and hire.

• UP 844 is a 4-8-4 Northern type express passenger steam locomotive (class FEF-3). It was the last steam locomotive built for the Union Pacific and has been in continuous service since its 1944 delivery; it was never even briefly withdrawn from service, uniquely among surviving American steam locomotives.
• UP 3985 is a 4-6-6-4 Challenger class dual-service steam locomotive. It is the largest steam locomotive still in operation anywhere in the world. Withdrawn from service in 1962, it was displayed outside the Cheyenne, Wyoming roundhouse until 1981 when a team of employee volunteers restored it to service.
• UP 951, 949 and 963B are a trio of streamlined General Motors Electro-Motive Division E9 passenger locomotives built in 1955. They are used to haul the UP business cars and for charter specials. While externally they are 1955 vintage locomotives, the original twin engines have been replaced with single EMD 16-645E 3000 hp (2.2 MW) units and the electrical and control equipment similarly upgraded, making them modern locomotives under the skin.
• UP 6936 is an EMD DDA40X "Centennial" diesel-electric locomotive. These were the largest diesel locomotives ever built and were manufactured specifically for Union Pacific.

In addition there are a number of other locomotives kept in storage for possible future restoration.

Preserved locomotives

In addition to the historic fleet outlined above kept by the Union Pacific itself, a large number of UP locomotives survive elsewhere. Many locomotives were donated to towns along the Union Pacific tracks, for instance, as well as locomotives donated to museums.

• UP 737 - An American 4-4-0 in the collection of Steamtown National Historic Site.
• UP 4004, 4005, 4006, 4012, 4014, 4017, 4018, 4023 - Union Pacific Big Boy 4-8-8-4 articulated steam locomotives. Eight out of twenty-five still survive. Number 4017, currently residing at the National Railroad Museum (http://www.nationalrrmuseum.org) in Green Bay, WI, has been occasionally mentioned as a possible candidate for restoration to operation, but no plans are currently in the works.
• UP 9000, a Union Pacific 9000 class 4-12-2 giant non-articulated freight locomotive, at the Los Angeles County Fairplex, Pomona, California.

See also

• Central Pacific Railroad
• Southern Pacific Railroad
• First Transcontinental Railroad

References

• Union Pacific Railroad (http://www.uprr.com/)
• Thousands of photographs from as early as 1860 taken by employees of the Union Pacific railroad (http://www.uprr.com/aboutup/photos/)
• Union Pacific Historical Society (http://www.uphs.org/)
• Union Pacific Railroad 19th Century Stereoview Exhibit (at the Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum) (http://UPRR.org/Museum/UPRR/)
• Union Pacific Corporation (http://www.up.com/)

fr:Union Pacific