Tomorrow marks the 150th anniversary of Union Pacific, the place I am proud to be employed. (150 sure is a lot of years!) Throughout the whole year, there have been various events to commemorate this amazing milestone.
This past week, UP launched a national advertising campaign surrounding the anniversary. On Wednesday, any employee who wanted one, was offered a complimentary copy of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal which featured one of our full page, color print ads.
Other newspapers that you may have seen a UP ad in on Wednesday were the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and USA Today, among others. In addition to the print ads, 150th Anniversary ads will accompany all the newspapers' online sites in as well as MSNBC and CNNMoney. This week, Time magazine has a special "Making of America" issue, which includes two UP ads, the UP timeline, and had an animated homepage takeover on its website on Thursday. Lastly, the Omaha World Herald will run some ads between July 2nd and 4th as well as some unique Union Pacific ads for the 2012 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials that are currently taking place in Omaha. So basically, UP is everywhere this week!
Perhaps the coolest thing, in my opinion, that is going on this next week to commemorate UP's 150th, is when 11 Union Pacific employees and our CEO, Jack Koraleski, get to make a trip to Wall Street to ring the New York Stock Exchange Closing Bell on Monday, July 2. We are having a celebration in the atrium of the UP Center to watch it all happen live via video feed, so it should be pretty cool!
Launched earlier this year, UP has a special website to house all of its 150th Anniversary information and material. UP150.com is where you can go to see tons of information about all the events going on, read stories of families who have had the railroad in their family for many generations and how the railroad has impacted many peoples' lives, and check out the many entries into the Great Big Rollin' Railraod video remake contest where people submit entries to remake a 1970s video and win up to $15,000. Watch the original video below (or click here) and then go to the UP site to check out the remakes!
One other thing on the UP150 site is the Timeline. It highlights the events that have shaped the railroad over the past 150 years and provides some really interesting information. This timeline is also available to download for free in the Apple iTunes store under Books. I don't know if it's just because I work for the company or what, but I find the history very facinating. I summarized a bit of it below (yes, a little history lesson) but feel free to head over to UP150.com/timeline to check out even more details about UP's last 150 years.
On July 1, 1862, President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 which directed the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific to construct a transcontinental railroad. The Act chartered the Union Pacific Railroad Company to build west from the Missouri River. UP held a groundbreaking ceremony at the settlement of Omaha in Nebraska Territory on December 2, 1862, but construction was delayed until 1865 due to insufficient funding. The first rails were laid on July 10, 1865.
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| An early map of Omaha from 1866 shows the original UP route and was used to help determine where to build a bridge to cross the Missouri River. |
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| After the first rail was laid in 1865, Omaha became the major shop location for Union Pacific. The "shops" were near today's convention center and baseball stadium in downton Omaha. |
On May 9, 1869, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific met at Promontory Summit, Utah, the place where Congress had passed a joint resolution naming it the place “at which the rails shall meet and form one continuous line.” Then, on May 10, a ceremonial spike was driven to join the rails of the First Transcontinental Railroad across the United States during the Golden Spike Ceremony.
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| As Union Pacific's chief engineer, it fell to Grenville Dodge to inform UP President Oliver Ames that the crews had reached Promontory Summit, Utah. Note the date on the telegram is May 9, 1989, the day before the Golden Spike Celebration. |
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| A picture taken during the celebrations on May 10, 1869. |
In March 1872, UP opened the first bridge across the Missouri River, connecting Omaha and Council Bluffs, and the transcontinental railroad to the eastern United States. The Union Pacific Bridge, which was a half-mile long, cost nearly $2.9 million. The completion of the bridge marked the true completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.
Over the next 100 years, UP joined with other railroads, declared bankruptcy, came under new leadership, built new routes and bridges, debuted the steam engine and several other locomotive models, implemented the Transportation Control System (TCS), and became a subsidiary of the newly formed Union Pacific Corporation.
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| The first run of the first "Big Boy," No. 4000, in Utah in 1941 |
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| In May 1969 the Centennial locomovites were introduced. The Largest diesel-electrics ever built. |
In 1980, the Staggers Rail Act was passed and signed into law by President Carter. The Act removed many regulatory restrictions and provided railroads with the flexibility to adjust rates and tailor services and compete with each other. The railroads were now able to act like other businesses. Reregulation is something that is a hot topic in today’s railroad environment and threatens to take away the railroads’ freedom that is necessary to grow their industry.
You all remember cabooses on trains, right? In 1984 was when cabooses were replaced by End of Train (EOT) devises. These allow the engineer to monitor brake pressure at the rear of the train and set the air brakes from both halves of the train from the locomotive at the front of the train. Also in 1984, the first double-stack train also was put into service, enabling one container to be stacked on another as UP’s intermodal business grew. The stacked containers allowed for a better ride quality and more efficient use of rail cars.
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| An example of a double stacked train |
On June 1, 1989, the Harriman Dispatching Center opened in Omaha. The HDC centralized all train and crew dispatching. Each day, it coordinates movement of more than 800 trains over more than 32,000 route miles.
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| The Harriman Dispatch Center in Omaha |
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| The initial displays in the HDC featured football field-length rear projection screens showing the railroad's main lines. |
The flood of 1993 (which I vaguely remember from my childhood) damaged nearly 1,700 miles of UP’s Central regions in Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois. Flood waters, lightning and winds severely affected key UP rail segments, resulting in washouts, knocked-out signals and traffic congestion. Maintenance of Way teams, tie and surfacing gangs and dispatchers worked tirelessly to keep UP lines in service by clearing debris, resurfacing track and rerouting traffic. (There was also the flood in the summer of 2011 but I don't think that had near the impact on UP's lines as the flood in 1993 did)
The 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta marked the first time the Olympic flame was carried by rail. Union Pacific built a special-edition cauldron car with a 2-million BTU burner that displayed the flame on the journey. The event was only the third time in it’s history that the railroad painted a locomotive in custom colors other than its noted Armour Yellow. On April 26, the Relay Train began a 40-day, 3,500-mile run from Yuma, Arizona, to Chicago. In all, the torch traveled more than 15,000 miles in 84 days.
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| Union Pacific 1996 Olympic Torch Relay Locomotive |
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| Union Pacific 1996 Olympic Torch Relay Cauldron/Torch car |
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| An SP Locomotive |
In 1999, construction was completed on the largest rail construction in modern times, building a third 108-miles line track between North Platte and Gibbon, Nebraska. An average of 100 trains a day travel this Kearney Subdivision. The track serves the Bailey Yard in North Platte, the world’s largest classification yard.
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| Bailey Yard in North Platte, Nebraska in 1996 |
In 2002, UP once again carried the Olympic flame on its way to the Salt Lake City Winter Games. Two specially painted UP locomotives, a Cauldron Car and 18 additional cars promoted the spirit of the Winter Games as it traveled more than 3,200 miles through 11 states. It was one of 10 modes of transportation that included dogsled, horse-drawn sleigh and covered wagon.
June 2004 marked the opening of the New UP Headquarters building in downtown Omaha (the place where I spend 9 hours a day 5 days a week.) The new building, which was just across the street from the original headquarters, brought employees under one roof. More than 4,000 employees, who were previously spread out in seven locations and in St. Louis, come to work each day in the 1.3-million-square-foot, 19-story glass-and-steel building. The UP Center includes a dining facility, fitness center, heath clinic, pharmacy, and credit union, among other amenities and is the largest single-corporation office building in Nebraska.
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| UP Center (I sit on the opposite side of the building, just in case you were wondering!) |
Sorry if you were bored with all that, but I hope you found it at least a little interesting, and I didn't make you read it all! :) I really do enjoy learning more about the history of our company and how big of an impact the railroad has had on our country. I am proud to be an employee of a company that is Building America ;)
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