Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad, legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. The Union Pacific Railroad system is the second largest in the United States after BNSF and is one of the world's largest transportation companies. The Union Pacific Railroad is the principal operating company of the Union Pacific Corporation, both headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. The president of Union Pacific since 2015 is Lance Fritz.
Founded in 1862, the original Union Pacific Rail Road was part of the First Transcontinental Railroad project, later known as the Overland Route. The railroad was absorbed by the Union Pacific Railway in 1880, which was absorbed by the Union Pacific Railroad in 1897. Over the next century, UP absorbed the Missouri Pacific Railroad, the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company, the Western Pacific Railroad, the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad and the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad.
In 1998, the Union Pacific merged with Southern Pacific Transportation Company, itself a giant system that was absorbed by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad maintaining the Southern Pacific name.
Today, Union Pacific and its chief competitor, BNSF Railway, the nation's largest freight railroad by volume, have a duopoly on transcontinental freight rail lines in the western United States.
History
Union Pacific in the 19th century
The original company, the Union Pacific Rail Road was incorporated on July 1, 1862, under an act of Congress entitled Pacific Railroad Act of 1862. The act was approved by President Abraham Lincoln, and it provided for the construction of railroads from the Missouri River to the Pacific as a war measure for the preservation of the Union. It was constructed westward from Council Bluffs, Iowa to meet the Central Pacific Railroad line, which was 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. 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. The two lines were joined together at Promontory Summit, Utah, west of Ogden on May 10, 1869, hence creating the first transcontinental railroad in North America.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., about west of Omaha in the Nebraska Territory, in October 1866. The train in the background awaits the party of Eastern capitalists, newspapermen, and other prominent figures invited by the railroad executives.|alt=
The original UP was entangled in the Crédit Mobilier scandal, exposed in 1872. As detailed by The Sun, Union Pacific's largest construction company, Crédit Mobilier, had overcharged Union Pacific; these costs had then been passed on to the United States government. In order to convince the federal government to accept the increased costs, Crédit Mobilier had bribed congressmen. Several prominent UP board members had been involved in the scheme. The ensuing financial crisis of 1873 led to a credit crunch, but not bankruptcy.
As boom followed bust, the Union Pacific continued to expand. The original company was purchased by a new company on January 24, 1880, with dominant stockholder Jay Gould. Gould already owned the Kansas Pacific, and sought to merge it with UP. Thusly was the original "Union Pacific Rail Road" transformed into "Union Pacific Railway."
Extending towards the Pacific Northwest, Union Pacific built or purchased local lines that gave it access to Portland, Oregon. Towards Colorado, it built the Union Pacific, Denver and Gulf Railway: both 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. Again, a new Union Pacific "Railroad" was formed and Union Pacific "Railway" merged into the new corporation.
Union Pacific in the 20th century
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 rail-based transport system that was not vulnerable to spoilage. These efforts came culminated in the 1906 founding of Pacific Fruit Express, soon to be the world's largest lessee of refrigerated railcars.Meanwhile, Union Pacific worked to construct a faster, and more direct substitute for the original climb to Promontory Point. 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.
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. The latter resulted in the Sun Valley ski resort in central Idaho; it opened in 1936 and finally was sold in 1964. 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.
As the 20th century waned, Union Pacific recognized—like most railroads—that remaining a regional road could only lead to bankruptcy. At the close of December 31, 1925, UP and its subsidiaries had operated routes and tracks; in 1980, these numbers had remained roughly constant. But in 1982, UP acquired the Missouri Pacific and Western Pacific railroads, and 1988, the Missouri–Kansas–Texas. By 1993, Union Pacific had doubled its system to routes.
By then, few large railroads remained. The same year that Union Pacific merged with the Chicago and North Western, Burlington Northern and ATSF announced plans to merge. The impending BNSF amalgamation would leave one mega-railroad in control of the west. In order to compete, UP quickly merged with Southern Pacific, thereby incorporating D&RGW and Cotton Belt, and forming a duopoly in the West. The merged railroad took the Union Pacific name.
| UP | LNP&W | S&EV | P&IN | |
| 1925 | 12,869 | 10 | 3 | |
| 1933 | 8,639 | 4 | 0.4 | |
| 1944 | 37,126 | 7 | 0.7 | - |
| 1960 | 33,280 | - | ||
| 1970 | 47,575 | - | - | - |
| 1979 | 73,708 | - | - | - |
| 1993 | 220,697 | - | - | - |
Facilities
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. Intermodal terminals are typically ports, but UP also has terminals inland for trucks, such as the terminal in San Antonio that opened in 2009.Active yards
Union Pacific's active hump yards as of 2006 include:- Albina Yard in Portland, Oregon, present since 1881.
- Bailey Yard in North Platte, Nebraska
- Beaumont Yard in Beaumont, Texas
- Davidson Yard in Fort Worth, Texas
- Davis Yard in Roseville, California
- Englewood Yard in Houston, Texas
- Gateway Yard in East St Louis, Illinois, owned by subsidiary Alton and Southern Railway
- Livonia Yard in Livonia, Louisiana
- North Little Rock Yard in North Little Rock, Arkansas
- Proviso Yard in Northlake, Illinois, owned by Chicago and North Western Transportation Company until 1995
- Strang Yard in La Porte, Texas
- West Colton Yard in Bloomington, California
Locomotives and rolling stock
Union Pacific has owned some of the most powerful locomotives. These include members of the Challenger-type, and the Northern-type, as well as the Big Boy steam locomotives. Union Pacific ordered the first streamliner, the largest fleet of turbine-electric locomotives in the world, and still owns the largest operational diesel locomotive.Paint and colors
UP's basic paint scheme for its diesel-electric locomotives is the oldest still in use by a major railroad. The middle two-thirds of the locomotive body is painted Armour Yellow, 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 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 regulations for reflectorized tape came into effect in 2005; the trucks, underframe, fuel tanks and everything else beneath that line are also Harbor Mist Gray. Lettering and numbering are in Signal Red, with black outlines. Some 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. 5645 in Battle Creek, Michigan, with the Flags and Flares paint schemeOregon, shows the white-outlined blue "wings" on the nose|alt=
The Armour Yellow livery was first introduced on the UP's M-10000 streamliner train in 1934, although Leaf Brown was used instead of Harbor Mist Grey. The steam locomotive fleet had different paint schemes.
Merger partner locomotives
Until 2017, UP operated some locomotives still in the former railroads' paint. 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. This 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:- 22 Chicago and North Western,
- 174 Southern Pacific
- 14 St. Louis Southwestern
- 2 Denver and Rio Grande Western
- While not technically a predecessor locomotive in the traditional sense, UP also rostered a single SD40-2 still in the 1970s paint scheme, not counting DDA40X No. 6936, which is part of the Union Pacific Heritage Fleet.
Commemorative color schemes
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.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 in November 8, 2019.
On March 31, 2010, UP dedicated a specially painted GE ES44AC locomotive commemorating the centennial of the Boy Scouts of America.
On September 28, 2010, UP dedicated a specially painted GE ES44AC locomotive, as a tribute to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
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.
UP also has a collection of locomotives painted for Operation Lifesaver.
2013 locomotive roster
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. According to Union Pacific, this is the largest fleet of diesel-electric locomotives in the US.| 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 |
"Train Pride" equipment
Union Pacific continues to use a small number of "heritage" steam locomotives and early streamlined diesel locomotives. This equipment is used on special charters. Union Pacific also maintains a single DDA40X locomotive, the most powerful diesel locomotive in the world.| Type | Quantity |
| 4-8-8-4 | 1 |
| 4-6-6-4 | 1 |
| 4-8-4 | 1 |
| DDA40X | 1 |
| E9A | 2 |
| E9B | 1 |
Low-emissions locomotives
Union Pacific maintains an extensive fleet of low-emissions locomotives. The majority of these locomotives have been purchased via grants from the US federal government, via the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program. Most are used in Los Angeles basin rail yards, to satisfy an air quality agreement with the local authorities.| Type | Quantity |
| 2GS14B | 1 |
| GP22T4 | 10 |
| MP20B | 13 |
| 3GS21B | 59 |
| PR30C | ≥6 |
| GG20GE | 21 |
| Others | ≤71 |
Facts and figures
Broken down by specific type of car, owned and leased:
- 35,437 covered hoppers
- 12,272 boxcars
- 18,647 open-top hoppers
- 13,780 gondolas
- 14,148 "other" types of cars
UP was ranked 134th on the 2019 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue and had 41,967 employees.
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.
Passenger service
, Union Pacific does not provide regularly-scheduled intercity passenger services.Commuter services
When Union Pacific merged with Chicago & Northwestern, it inherited C&NW's commuter rail services in the Chicago metropolitan area: Metra's UP/North, UP/Northwest, and UP/West lines, all of which operate from the Ogilvie Transportation Center. 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.Former services
Between 1869 and 1971, Union Pacific operated passenger service throughout its historic "Overland Route." The last passenger train operated by UP was the westbound City of Los Angeles, arriving at LA Union Station on May 2. Since then, Union Pacific has satisfied its common carrier requirements by hosting Amtrak trains.Hosted Amtrak trains
Many Amtrak routes use Union Pacific rails, including:- Amtrak Cascades
- California Zephyr
- Capitol Corridor
- Coast Starlight
- Lincoln Service
- Missouri River Runner
- Pacific Surfliner
- San Joaquin
- Sunset Limited
- Texas Eagle
Notable accidents
21st century
- September 4, 2007: a Union Pacific train derailment split the small town of Sergeant Bluff, Iowa. About 16 cars derailed, most carrying salt that spilled into snow-like piles. The derailment interrupted traffic for about two hours.
- June 24, 2012: three crew members died and caused a property damage of $15 million when two Union Pacific trains collided head-on just east of Goodwell, Oklahoma. The eastbound train passed a stop signal on the main track and struck the westbound train in a siding about east of the meeting point. The NTSB provided the probable causes as eastbound train's operator's vision problems and failure by the conductor to get backup assistance as required. NTSB stated UP did not comply with its own policies when it medically recertified the operator. The company only had six color tests despite the policy requiring a color test for 10 signals.
- November 15, 2012: A UP train struck a parade float in Midland, Texas, killing four U.S. military veterans.
- May 25, 2013: in Chaffee, Missouri, a Union Pacific train collided with a BNSF train at a level junction, injuring seven, and causing damages exceeding $10 million. The accident caused a Missouri Route M overpass to partially collapse and caused a fire. The investigation concluded the engineer most likely fell asleep, due to sleep apnea. The uncontrolled train violated four progressively more restrictive signals before colliding with the BNSF train at roughly. Three months later, the Route M overpass reopened with a new design.
- June 3, 2016: a 96-car oil train derailed in the Columbia River Gorge near Mosier, Oregon. Eleven cars derailed, at least one caught on fire, and of Bakken crude oil spilled, some going into the Columbia River. Some were eventually recovered.
- September 7, 2019: a Union Pacific train of two locomotives and three tank cars carrying liquefied petroleum gas derailed and crashed into an overpass support column at the Albina Yard in Portland, Oregon The support column is for the eastbound lanes of the six-lane Going Street overpass, which is the only public access to the major industrial area Swan Island for passenger vehicles and delivery vehicles. The crash left just two lanes safe to use until repairs can be made, which is speculated to take weeks to months. Two of six lanes remain closed as of November 14th, 2019. The preliminary cause of crash as provided by Union Pacific is "broken rails". There was nobody on board the train which was remotely operated at the time of crash. A ship builder Vigor with 900 employees on the Swan Island had to adjust employee shift to stagger commute time as a result of traffic delays.
San Antonio area
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. 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.
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. Between June 2004 and March 2005, 10 trains derailed, killing as many people.
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. But the relative impunity UP seemed to exhibit regarding the derailment led to suggestions that the FRA was far "too cozy...to the railroads." 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.
Trains have continued to derail in the area including an incident in June 2009 where tank cars containing chlorine and petroleum naptha xylene derailed, but did not spill.
Community responsibility
Transient camp and graffiti issues
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,”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 will turn a page on Union Pacific’s behavior in the past to enable a more collaborative relationship going forward."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.
Environmental record
In Eugene, Oregon, where pollution from a century-old railroad 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.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.
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.
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 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 and was sentenced to two years probation and a $2,500 fine.