Union Pacific Heritage Locomotive Fleet
Photo Shoot
Salt Lake City, Utah
June 30, 2007
Story and photographs by Richard
Elgenson
RailNewsNetwork writer
Posted July 9, 2007
Updated July 13, 2007
It pays to read posting boards on the
internet. I noticed an interesting event involving he Union
Pacific Railroad to take place in Salt Lake City Utah on June 30,
2007. Having not been to Salt Lake City in over 30 years, it
seemed time to return to photograph some railroad equipment.
After finding decent fares on 2 different airlines for my round tirp, I
got a ride to Long Beach Airport for my first flight on a commuter
jet. I got the last seat on this flight and had limited views of
scenery along the way. Upon landing, I found my friend Jerry to
hand off the frozen halibut that we would have for dinner after the
locomotive photography session. Since I had the time, I made a
visit to Promontory Summit, site of the
joining of the transcontinental railroad. All this was to take
place
in a quick 48 hour trip. I then got a rental car to drive to the
Golden Spike Historical Site. The Golden Spike story will be
posted at a later time. After spending a night at the Anton
Boxrud Bed and Breakfast near the governor's mansion, I got to the goal
of this trip...
Powers that be at Union Pacific
Railroad decided to have a "class
photo" of their heritage fleet of locomotives. The paint schemes
on this equipment is respectful to each "fallen flag" railroad which
was
merged into the Uniion Pacific system. They are Missouri Pacific,
Western Pacific, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas, the Denver & Rio Grande
Western, Chicago and NorthWestern, and Southern Pacific. Having
previously seen only one of these specially painted locmotives, the SP,
I attended the
photo shoot on June 30, 2007 in Salt Lake City Utah. The railroad
asked that all photographers sign a release form to be on their
property. Upon giving up the release form, a locomotive pin was
given. My pin happened to be a Missouri Pacific heritage pin
which I gave to a friend at dinner later that same day. The
locomotives were displayed on a wye track outside a recently opened
intermodal yard west of Salt Lake City proper. It appeared that
the timeline for mergers and locomotive numbers went from back to
front. The exception would be the D&RGW unit, since that
company bought out Southern Pacific before UP bought SP. Unit
8444 was first in line being called the flag unit. Below are
right and left side views of all of the heritage units.
For all photographs of UP 1996
Southern Pacific heritage unit, click here.
For all photographs of UP 1995 Chicago
and NorthWestern heritage unit, click here.
For all photographs of UP 1989 Denver
and Rio Grande Western heritage
unit, click here.
For all photographs of UP 1988
Missouri-Kansas-Texas heritage unit, click
here.
For all photographs of UP 1983 Western
Pacific heritage unit, click here.
For all photographs of UP 1982
Missouri Pacific heritage unit, click here.
You will notice many more pictures of this unit than the others.
The first and last locomotives were the easiest to photograph.
Also, my friend Jerry had started his railroad career with Missouri
Pacific. This amount of photographs will help Jerry produce a
beautiful painting.
Continue to next page for
additional views of all equipment.
At one point during the event, I
almost tripped over some barbed wire in the weeds. An event
person was standing very nearby in an orange vest and red UP hat.
Later I asked him what his capacity was working for the railroad.
Marty's reply was that he worked for a public relations firm in Omaha,
directly across the street from UP headquarters and that he had done
the graphic design on several of the heritage units. I
complimented him on the results. I have been a lifelong resident
of Southern California, growing up in the San Fernando Valley with a
Southern Pacific branch line in our back yard in Van Nuys. My
favorite UP heritage locomotive is the Denver
and Rio Grande Western due to my love of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
The day of this event was hot. After being there for two hours, I
was ready to get out of the sun. On my way out, I noticed the
Union Pacific people had climbed aboard the flag locomotive cab
platform for a photo opportunity. I would liked to have collected
this shot, but I left. I went back to the cheap motel which was
not ready to allow me to check-in on my first visit before the UP
event. After taking too much time to check me in, I got ready to
visit Jerry and his wife for dinner in South Jordan near
Taylorsville. That morning, some guests at the Anton Boxrud had
told me that Taylorsville was going to have a big fireworks show at 10
PM that night. After a thouroughly enjoyable dinner with my
friends, I found a place to watch the "big show" from.
Taylorsville puts on an excellent show. It lasted for 30
minutes! Upon my return to the cheap motel, I struggled with my
loaned digital camera to download the photographs. At last I
succeeded and checked out the results. I then arranged for an
extremely early wake up call to catch my 6:45 AM flight home.
Unfortunately, I left my 102 dollar bag of Golden Spike souvenirs in
the rental car. I remembered this 2/3 of the way back to Long
Beach. They seem to be lost forever, since the car rental company
claims that no one turned them in. Once I got home, I got to
clean house for the 30 or more guests I was having over for a lazy
Sunday afternoon barbeque.
