Welcome to the Union Pacific Historical Society! Founded in 1984, … Read More
News at the Top
Register now for the Pasco Convention! – The UPHS 2023 convention is in Pasco, Washington, July 19-22, 2023, at the Red Lion Hotel and Convention Center. Plans include two days of chartered trains over former Union Pacific rails as well as multi-media presentations. For more information, please click here!
In Memoriam – We are sorry to report the passing of UPHS Business Manager Robert Krieger. Bob was an alumnus of the UP Steam Crew. Before that he was in engine service for UP and before that he worked for Rock Island in Chicagoland. Bob was the Chair of our 2022 Convention. Those who attended last June enjoyed the fine program Bob put together. UPHS Treasurer John Cazahous has stepped up to assume the duties of Business Manager. You can contact the UPHS Cheyenne office by email, uphsoffice@uphs.org .
Winter issue of The Streamliner available now! – In this issue Cate Kratville-Wrinn provides an overview of UP’s Heritage Donation Special that included moving 5511, 3985, and other equipment to their new home at Silvis, Illinois. In other articles, Jim Griffiths recounts an unexpected helper ride photographers Hank Griffiths and Dick Kindig had on a 2-8-8-o on Medbury Hill. Rich Pennisi recalls a challenging day while working as the East Green River Dispatcher, and Chris Faulk shares photos by Jim Watson in the Marysville, Kansas, area from the 1970s-1980s. The issue concludes with the “From the Archives” column that shares documents detailing helper operations on the Denver Pacific. This issue is available now at the company store!
New Book on Camas Prairie Railroad! – Carefully researched from railroad papers and interviews with employees, this book tells the full story of the Camas Prairie Railroad. This history presents the origins of the unique cooperation between the parent companies Union Pacific Railroad and Northern Pacific Railway, and details the many routes surveyed to the railroad’s namesake Camas Prairie and to the logging camp at Headquarters, Idaho. Includes maps of the many surveyed lines considered in Lapwai Canyon, site of the famous Halfmoon bridge. This 320-page hardbound book is complete with information on operations and equipment, maps of the full railroad and key points, and over 350 illustrations and photographs. Now available at the company store!
New book on Cheyenne facilities! – A. J. Wolff and Jim Ehernberger have prepared this fine treatise on UP facilities in Cheyenne. This book is an invaluable source of information for modelers recreating UP’s Cheyenne facilities in various eras, and it will be appreciated by UP history buffs seeking to understand UP’s Cheyenne terminal operations over the years. Hard cover, 128 pages containing more than 200 black and white and color images. Historical details are provided in each caption regarding the structures, including shops, roundhouses, servicing tracks, freight yard, stores department, depot, tower A, stockyards, etc.. The book is available now in the company store.
UPHS Archives at the American Heritage Center of the University of Wyoming – The American Heritage Center is developing a digital library of the images and diagrams in the UPHS Collection at AHC. This is a long-term, gradual process; only a fraction of our images are digitized at this point. A long-run goal is to develop an indexed, searchable digital library of small scans of our images for the benefit of our membership and others. Some of the completed small scans have been posted on-line by AHC. You can take a look at https://digitalcollections.uwyo.edu/luna/servlet/uwydbuwy~107~107.
American Heritage Center – The American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming in Laramie is featured the UPHS collection on the home page of their web site in February. Go to https://www.uwyo.edu/ahc/ [February 4, 2020]
Links have been updated under the Resources tab. In particular, a link has been added directing you to the Union Pacific Steam Club, where you can sign up and keep up to date with the steam program and its excursions. [February 27, 2019]
From the Business Car
After two years of cancelled in-person conventions, it was great to reconnect with UPHS members and friends at the Cheyenne convention in May. To those of you who braved the pandemic-era travel restrictions, thank you for being there. Hopefully, the pandemic will continue to abate, allowing us to reconvene in July next year in Pasco, Washington. We are planning a fun convention, including rides on both the Eagle Cap Railroad (former UP Joseph Branch) and the Yakima Valley Transit (former UP electrified subsidiary short line).
With respect to the Cheyenne convention, special thanks are due to John Gray for exhibiting his magnificent live steamers, to Ed Dickens for sharing the U.P. Steam Program details with us, and to Steve Sandberg of Railroading Heritage of Midwest America for communicating his developing plans for restoring historic U.P. equipment using the ex-Rock Island shops in Silvis, IL. Restoration of locomotives 3985, 5511, and 6936, the Stanford ex-SP business car, and the Selma ex-WP business car, is no small effort; it will cost upwards of $7 million. Two anonymous donors have established large matching grants for this project that will provide $2 for every dollar you donate, potentially raising $1.5 million. If you are interested in contributing to this effort, go to https://rrhma.com/double_match/ .
At the Cheyenne convention I started in the role of President of the Society. As I look at the status of our Society: On the plus side, we produce I think a very good quarterly magazine. We offer a good-quality calendar. We have a convenient Company Store. We can put on informative and enjoyable conventions, both in-person and on-line. We receive considerable donated paper and photos of Union Pacific, and we have a relationship with the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming to preserve our archives. On the down side, I think we need to do better at making our archived materials accessible to the membership. We also are a bit weak with respect to the generation of UP history books; I think we should try to do better in that area.
I would be glad to hear your suggestions about how to improve the Society, just email me at president@uphs.org. Best regards, Rob Leachman
Union Pacific Historical Society Endowment Fund
The Union Pacific Historical Society Endowment Fund supports the UPHS Archive Collection at the University of Wyoming – American Heritage Center. The UPHS Board of Directors voted in September 2020 to establish this new UPHS Endowment Fund through the University of Wyoming Foundation utilizing their 501(c)(3) non-profit standing. The University of Wyoming Foundation actively manages a portfolio of over 1,500 endowment funds that jointly support a wide range of activities at both the University of Wyoming and the adjoining American Heritage Center at Laramie. The University of Wyoming Foundation has existing staff well trained to handle any tax-deductible donations, plus will also generate and provide tax documentation to all donors. Utilizing the University of Wyoming Foundation staff ensures continuity of the management and specified use of the UPHS Endowment Fund should the UPHS cease to exist.
The targeted purpose of the UPHS Endowment Fund is to permanently fund archival preservation and management activities of the current (and future additions to the) UPHS Archive Collection now at American Heritage Center, as well as support other railroad-related transportation collections at AHC. From its founding, the American Heritage Center at Laramie has prided itself on being accessible to everyone – from the elementary school students learning about primary resources, to the college students researching their thesis, to the professional historians performing primary research for writing up their findings, to a broad cross-section of the public following their passions. The UPHS Archive Collection inside AHC in late 2020 measures more than 300 cubic feet of our physical collection and includes over 100 gigabytes of preserved digital materials. The primary eventual goal is to establish consistent funding for a full-time employee inside the American Heritage Center to manage the UPHS Archive Collection along with other railroad collections held at AHC. Details of the very specific permissible uses of the UPHS Endowment Fund are available on the UPHS.org website.
The strength of the Union Pacific Historical Society has always been the strong involvement and support of the membership. On behalf of the UPHS Board of Directors, as President I am now asking again for your support with contributing toward growing this new UPHS Endowment Fund.
Online Donation Instructions:
- Go to: www.uwyo.edu/giveonline
- Enter the amount you wish to donate.
- Select “Single Payment,” “Multiple Payments,” or “Recurring Payments“
- Select “View Individual UW Funds“
- Select “Other Fund Not Listed (Please Specify)“
- Click “Continue“
- Enter “UPHS Fund” for the name of the fund.
- Enter A21UPHS for the Appeal Code
- Click “Next” and complete checkout
You may mail your donation for the newly-formed UPHS Endowment Fund:
View/Download Donation Form and View More Information (pdf file)
Mail To:
University of Wyoming Foundation
Attn: UPHS Endowment Fund
222 S. 22nd St.
Laramie, WY 82070
Bank routing number and wire transfer information is available should you need it. Contact 307 766-6300 or 888 831-7795 for this information. Make checks out to “University of Wyoming Foundation” with “UPHS Endowment Fund” in memo line.
Greg Gardner, President – Union Pacific Historical Society
Member’s Area
Members Area – The Member’s Area on the UPHS web site is an “online archive” of Union Pacific documents provided as a service to our members. Documents include timetables, dispatcher sheets, Form 70s, train consists, and more! Log-in information will be emailed to members twice yearly in the Second Section newsletter. If you are not already a member, please visit the Company Store to join the UPHS!
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