Can anyone out there tell me anything about UP streamliners, like what were there names and what did they consist of ?. I recently saw a picture of an E8 and two B units that were pulling a smooth side consist.
Their E-9s, A-B-A are beautiful re-builts and run today hauling their 6 dome liners & 15 passenger cars
as excursions and sometimes headed up by their Mighty Challenger.
Yes. I’ve seen video and pictures of these trains, but never knew much about them. I wouldn’t mind modeling it, but I want to make certain it existed before going to all of the trouble and expense…
I don’t know the power but there’s the City of Los Angeles, City of San Francisco & the Portland Rose.
Somebody just be able to bring you up to speed or else an UPsociety or the UP
homepage, public information etc.
Browsers Supported by uprr.com
General Public
History and PhotosHistorical Equipment Still in Use
Dome Lounge Cars
City of San Francisco
Harriman
Walter Dean
top
The City of San Francisco
The City of San Francisco was built by American Car & Foundry in 1955 as dome lounge No. 9009 and named in 1993.
It is the only dome lounge in the Union Pacific Heritage passenger fleet that is still configured for end-of-train service. The car still has windows in the back wall, as well as the necessary exterior lighting, so it can be used as the last car of a train.
The City of San Francisco streamliner began service between Chicago, Illinois, and San Francisco, California, in June 1936. It was a jointly owned train with the Chicago & North Western. The C&NW operated the train from Chicago to Omaha, Nebraska; UP operated it between Omaha and Ogden, Utah; and Southern Pacific Railroad operated it from Ogden to San Francisco.
All “city” trains were painted Union Pacific colors of Leaf Brown and Armour Yellow, with scarlet striping and lettering, even though they operated over other railroads. Later the brown was changed to Harbor Mist Gray, the color scheme Union Pacific continues to use to this day.
One innovation in the dining car service on the City of San Francisco was the introduction of continental dinners. These were elaborate, multi-course meals with appropriate beverage service. The meals were soon discontinued when complaints of too much food and the “outrageous cost” of $1.50 per meal were forwarded on to railroad headquarters in Omaha.
top
The Harriman
The Harriman was built in 1955 by American Car & Foundry as Dome Lounge No. 9004. It was remodeled and named Harriman in 1988.
Edward Harriman had the vision to see the potential in the bankrupt Union Pacific Railroad in 1897.
Union Pacific was a pioneer in the development of streamlined passenger trains in the 1930s. Its fleet of Streamlined trains grew to include the “City of Los Angeles”, “City of Portland”, “City of San Fransisco”, and “City of Denver”, which connected their namesake cities with Chicago, and the “City of St. Louis”, which connected St. Louis, Kansas City and Denver on the east with Los Angeles, San Fransisco and Portland on the west.
The trains provided coach and sleeping car accommodations, as well as diners and lounge cars. Consists changed over the years, and varied from train to train. By the mid 1950s, most of the trains were equipped with dome coaches and dome lounges, and the City of Los Angeles and City of Portland received dome diners.
From 1956 on, the trains were pulled exclusively by E8 and E9 diesels on the Union Pacific. To reach San Fransisco (actually Oakland) and their eastern termini, the trains ran over Southern Pacific, Wabash (later Norfolk & Western) and Chicago & North Western (later Milwaukee Road).
As noted above, UP has refurbished a number of cars and a handful of locomotives from the 1950s for executive and excursion service.
Plagiarizing U.P.'s web site might not be a good idea since they like to sue everone.
trainluver1,
Check out “The Union Pacific Streamliners” by Ranks & Kratville for information on streamelined trains in addition to the Heritage fleet. Although the book is B&W, there is much information on the various trains that were in operation prior to 1971. Also, check out www.uphs.org/
for more information.
Bob Hayes
The company website as a good amount of information and there is a magazine printed that is very good too. The magazine is called Streamliner and it is put out by the UP historical society. It’s an excellent source of pictures and info.
RMax1
The vast majority of UP passenger cars were smooth side.Thier only fluted cars was a series of Budd 10-6 Pullmans.In later years all passenger trains were pulled by E units.
Okay. So if I buy an E8/9 set of A & B units and a basic consist of smooth side passenger cars and call it the City of L. A., that’s okay with history, right ?..
Also. The E8/9 A & B set I have my eye on buying has square winds. Would that be okay too ?.
Thanks guys. I grately appreciate the info and all of your trouble so far. Hope I can repay the favor some day.
trainluver1
Can anyone tell me when the Union Pacific and N&W discontinued their joint operation of the “City of St Louis” streamliner?
If the E8, E9 you have your eye on have square windows they are E7’s or possible E6-E3’s.
Also the E9’s the UP currently use are E9’s in body only they have GP38 running gear and electrical equipment other than the original A1A trucks.
Where can I find pictures of Budd 10-6 cars in UP livery?
Michaell,
The ‘Heritage’ E9’s still have their ‘A1A’ trucks. They basically have GP38-2 internals with D77 or D87 traction motors. There are several good books, and also the UP Historical Group has train info. The City of LA, SF, and Portland all used dome equipment. The Portland Rose was a secondary train, and may have seen dome equipment, but I sort of doubt if it had regular dome assignments.
In later years, the ‘City of Everywhere’ was a large combined train and split enroute for Denver, LA, Portland, and SF(tri-weekly, IIRC).
Jim
The UP also had a few Budd built coaches but they had smotth sides rather that the corrugated. You might want to try modeling the “City Of Las Vegas” also known (unofficially) as the Crapshooter, that ran between LA and Vegas. It ran w/ 6 or 7 cars, all coaches w/ one lunch counter car, and had a single A unit, a good model RR sized train as opposed to the 14-18 car City Of LA or SF.