Western Railroad Discussion > Help ID This UP Steam Era Photo

This picture was in a 2001 calendar that I received for a Christmas present a couple years ago titled "Locomotives, The Golden Age of Travel", published by Graphique De France. The calendar credits Elliot Erwitt with the photo, and all it says is "Wyoming", with no specific town or date given.

As a UP fan, I'm really stumped as to the location of this photo. The engine appears to be a 3800 class early Challenger type with a string of PFE reefers. It's a little hard to tell if the main line is one or two tracks. If it's one track, then most likely it's along the OSL between Granger and the Idaho border. Note the grain elevator at left and the mountains in the background. Could this highway be old US30? Another possibility is that the publisher of the calendar screwed up and listed the wrong state. Maybe it could be Idaho or Oregon. Thanks for any help!

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I've been wondering about that one too. I doubt that it was ever published before it appeared in that calender. But surely there are no grain (?) elevators anywhere along the UP main in Wyoming?

(By "UP main" I mean the line to Ogden. But for all I know this could be along the OSL in Wyoming.)

Could be anywhere, looks alot like an oil painting to me.

The other thing the UP main in Wyoming (i.e. the main to Ogden) doesn't have is mountains looming in the background. (I think.)

Well, I think it very well may be in Wyoming. It looks a lot like old US30 just west of Medicine Bow and the range of mtns. in the background would be the Laramie's. Driven this hwy many times.

Butch

The blizzard fence in the right foreground is very much a fixture in Wyoming!

Butch

The car and train look to real to be a painting.

I have spent a lot of time along the OSL main between Pocatello and Granger, Wyoming. This picture looks very familiar and typical of many scenes along this remote and rarely photographed line.

Most if not all of the 3800s were assigned to the OSL during the period 1947-1953, when the F3s took over. Reefer trains were common on this line. The train, highway, auto, and other aspects of the photo match this era. Also, there are numerous snow fences on this line, even now.

I will look through my slide collection to find a match for this scene. The grain elevator is probably still there, since this area is in a land that time has forgotten (no malls, freeways, tract houses, etc.) Old US 30 follows the OSL all the way through this area and all of Southern Idaho.

There was a grain elevator at Burns, WY.

The title of this photograph is Wyoming 1954. Elliot Erwitt is a very well-known photographer. Given his reputation, I doubt he would have faked anything about this. A Google search on Erwitt Wyoming will yield about 50-75 sites where you can buy this photo in poster sizes. Still doesn't answer exactly where it was taken, though.

Looks like US30 looking back west towards Bancroft, ID.

...I think dda40x's guess is by far the best so far.
http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=12&n=4728301&e=430337

One problem: assuming the elevator is next to the track there'd have to be a curve east of Bancroft--which maybe there isn't. But I think he's in the right area.

Actually, US 30 doesn't spend much time next to the UP in Wyoming. Mostly it's off in the middle distance.