From my recent, therefore limited, exposure to this forum, I gather that UP is not the best-liked Class I railroad on the block. I can certainly understand some possible aspects of this: they’re sort of the train industry’s version of the NY Yankees, they don’t appear to be all that friendly to railfans or railfanning, and at least from my observations, they appear to be increasingly apathetic about train safety issues or timely service, to the extent that they control it by delaying Amtrak trains, etc.,etc. Still in all, they were the ones who merged with the MoP and the WoP back in the early '80s (I heard of no parallel attempts by then-BN to do the same thing), and a neutral observer could say that UP got a bit of the short end of the integration wave of the '90s, as SF’s physical plant and rolling stock were (ahem!) cleaner and probably better upgraded than SP’s (God rest their soul, I’ll always love the oscillating Mars lights!). So, my general question is: to what extent, and (if applicable) at what stages did UP’s golden years (pun unintended) turn to rust? Specifically:
(1. BNSF has a bit of a “monopoly” across the northern states, much as the UP does in states like NV or TX. What, in your opinion, makes the BNSF’s monopoly better, or alternatively less threatening, than UP’s?
(2. Can this be traced at all to the personalities or leadership styles of progressive CEO’s? Was Drew Lewis a better CEO than Dick Davidson? Was Dick Davidson better than Jerry Davis?
(3. Does anyone out there remember a really horrendous train accident that the UP had in either 2001 or 2002 in the LA area? There were a whole bunch of railcars that crashed into the houses of several residents along a very busy rail corridor (I think that these cars rolled downhill (don’t ask me how this was possible) for 15-20 miles and ran out of control, jumped the tracks and just totalled a whole bunch of houses that abutted the line, apparently
I was a guest (er, victim) on the Coast Starlight in early May when we made it to Portland 11.5 hours late and returning later from Seattle had to ride a bus to Portland to connect with a delayed Coast Starlight that never made it to Seattle. Maybe if UP hadn’t taken over SP there’d be no Coast Starlight today. I suppose the slow track north of Roseville and Sacramento affects UP’s freight traffic just as much as it does Amtrak. I’m just a bit reluctant to get too upset about the way UP is running its show and I don’t consider my need for the Coast Starlight to be any more than a choice of entertainment. But we still have to figure out how we’re going to move people about if gasoline prices keep going up and/or the stuff disappears completely. Maybe a future generation will find it easier to spend more time staying home and let UP help to keep the freight off the highways.
There’s an old joke about the UP. It comes from way back in the days when managers were men and secretaries were women. Like all humor, it’s got a bit of truth in it. Apoligies in advance to anyone offended by the sexist nature of this old joke.
"There was to be an international railway conference in Austrailia. Two managers from the Union Pacific were selected to represent the United States. They met up with the representatives from the UK, France and Italy (who had been touring the US railroad system) in Omaha and boarded a chartered jet for the long journey to Austrailia. Like the UP delegation, there were two men from each of the Eurpoean countries. Each delegation took a female secretary along.
Unfortunately, the plane ran into trouble and crashed. Leaving the eight men and four women stranded on an uncharted desert island in the Pacific. What to do? Eight men. Four women. ???
So the Italians acted first. One Italian shot other Italian so he could have the Italian secretary for himself.
The French went next, they simply decided to share the affections of their secretary.
Then the British made up their minds. They shot the secretary so they could have each other.
And the UP managers – they’re still waiting on instructions from Omaha."
It might be a dumb joke, but it does spoof a top down “heroic manager” style of running a business. Such a style will work if things are simple, as they were on the UP before the acquisistions. The UP could be run “top down” when it was a simple route from Kansas City/Omaha to the west coast. It became much more complex with the acquisistions and that management style no longer worked well.
The style still existed, it just no longer worked.
NOTE: to those sick of my UP bashing, no NOT read this post! the topic title was begging for a rant and i cannot turn down such an offer. you have been warned!
oh where to begin…
UP has been around for over a century. they have eaten far too many other railroads and have become the bloated empire they are now. the largest and most bland railroad in the whole world. now there’s the armour yellow. they use TOO MUCH! their locomotives are just armour yellow with grey tops. for god sake just paint the cab a different color. make it look interesting! when CNW was the road around here, there were a LOT more trains on all the track. UP shows up, eats them, and abandons most of their track here. then they greatly reduce how many trains go by to… 4 each night. that’s great. i have to go to altoona in the middle of the night if i want to see anything.
now then, the patching and repainting. i have never seen any of the other class 1s around now adding the most disruptive patches ever on their locomotives that used to be from a road they ate. BNSF’s patches are the same color and letterin as the rest of that locomotive’s former road. same with CSX patches on Conrail locomotives. but the UP patch on the CNWs makes them look horrible. they didnt need to do anything to those locomotives. they would not have performed any differently than if they remained unpatched. and just think of all that money they could have saved by not doing that.
so here’s to hoping that a senator breaks UP apart. CNW always looked good and never got boring. no matter how many times i would see it.
I expected to hear from you among others, so thanks for weighing in. I actually support just about all of the points you made. With just a couple of caveats: Couldn’t your complaints about UP being “big” apply to just about all the Class Is? Just about each of the other big lines have been monsters at swallowing up the competition (CSX to take just one example). Since you feel this way, I would imagine you’re also at least somewhat concerned if BNSF manages to merge with CN and/or one of the big Mexican roads. Yes, the wall-to-wall yellow does get tiresome. Though, CNW itself was a “Pentone” yellow, was it not?! I liked the CNW, but I wished they’d have more prominently displayed their name on their rolling stock.
Since you’re from that part of the country, do you happen to know the details about how UP was legally able to “absorb” the CNW? As I recall, it was all rather sneakily done, and it wasn’t clear that the CNW managers were all that thrilled about being “eaten” (though I suppose most mgrs in this position would have had about the same leverage (zero) to actually do anything about it…
so you set up this topic to lure and question me? ah i’m kidding
you could say that, but the other class 1s have nice loco schemes. armour yellow is not nice-looking. and as for CSX, well… they have a low maintenance record and horrible track. though nowhere near as bad as milwaukee road’s track was. CNW had good yellow. see, they painted their cabs green for a good contrast look that makes UP further look like crap
i know all about what UP did. sneaky little !#@$'s…
Let’s see, they don’t allow “forgen” steam on their tracks ( even if that steam power is from a RR they have taken over ) BNSF will, even in pre 9//11 days their “security” personel will discourage people from using photographic equipment for exposing phtographic film to light in a carefull and safe manner with their equipment in the view ( even when you are parked and standing on public and some private (not RR) property ). I never had SP pesonel tell me I couldn’t camp trackside out in BFE and say the cops were informed and I would be cited, I could allways ask SP prsonel if I could take a picture from location X and and get a nice yes or no ( not threatend to get ticketed ), and it was nice to travel to a different location and see different RR power not just more p*** yellow and baby s*** gray.
Am I mistaken or do I remember reading, in some ‘90s issue of Trains, they [ Youpee ] didn’t want grain shippers, on the Columbia Gorge line, to order any less than 100 car shipments and, then feel that Amtrak was cutting into their freight business by running LCL express box cars and roadrailers?
Sometimes the Youpee remindes me of some of the old emperors that would take over some city, or something, and if that city or something had built something nice they would either have it torn down or have the new emprors’ name chiseled in the “built by so and so” credit replacing the original builders name or names.
I’m no defender of UP but aren’t they guilty of having tons of trains delayed frequently? The congestion you speak of, I’d bet, is worse today that previously! They even have their own thread (http://www.trains.com/TRC/CS/forums/864372/ShowPost.aspx) on this forum about it.
The Union Pacific better change its ways before they go out of business. Yellow and gray? Before labor day? Sheesh. Patching locomotives they now own? Blasphemy.
Wait? What’s that? What did you say? Union Pacific DOESN’T exist to please foamers, but rather provide profit to its owners and investors? Interesting. So I guess all this moaning is for nothing? Maybe we need to send a memo out to all these posters.
What a very very stupid comment… So because September 11th didnt happen in Eau Claire you dont care? Perhaps an unfair topic to compare, but it still holds facts. If I do remember, many people didnt like the CNW, just like you dont like the UP. Alec
Face it, all this guy cares about is “pretty locomotives”. He can’t see anything but the colors of the trains that pass by his tiny little piece of the universe, commonly known as Eau Claire.
I use to see plenty of blue engines by my little piece of the universe - but now almost all of them turned black. If they are still blue, they have a really nifty white patch under the windows. Do I really care? Nope. Trains are still running, so it’s all good.
If seeing UP yellow bothers some people on this forum so much, might I suggest a change in hobbies?
look i thought i said not to read my post if you were sick of my UP bashing. for a topic like this, i had to say SOMETHING. did you not read my warning i posted before the rant?
but now that it’s all said and done with, stop giving me flak. read the first post. “vent here”. well i vented. so if you have a problem with me doing that in a topic meant for it, dont post or read the topic.
Sorry to offend anyone by voicing my opinion. IMHO some of us that seem to “only” care about “pretty locomotives” aren’t as ignorant or whatever some are implying in their responses. You don’t care what runs in your neck of the woods: great! I’m happy for you. Don’t rain on my parade just because I happen to voice a nostalgic thought from time to time.
