Western Railroad Discussion > No More UP Wings?

There is a rumor spreading around certain Yahoo Goups that UP is going to do away with the wings... Anyone have more information on this. Below is the message from the group:

"Coming from a source deep within the UP this week, it was made clear to me that the 'Wings' will not be around as long as we all first thought. So goout and get em boys, they won't last forever..."

I heard this rumor last August. The "authority" for the rumor was at a railfan get together, and he, too, had a source deep in the bowels of 1416 Dodge Street in Omaha.

This rumor is specifically programmed to appear every 11 months. Tune again in June, 2003, May, 2004, etc.

BNSF_9999 wrote:

> There is a rumor spreading




There's also been a rumor that BNSF is secretly paying NS's payroll because the latter is secretly bankrupt.

Also a rumor that BNSF actually paid for NS's share of Conrail and is just letting them run it for now.

Also a rumor that Generalissimo Franco is still dead. No wait, that one is true.

BobE

BobE wrote:


> There's also been a rumor that BNSF is secretly paying NS's
> payroll because the latter is secretly bankrupt.
>
> Also a rumor that BNSF actually paid for NS's share of
> Conrail and is just letting them run it for now.


What is really pathetic is how many suckers there are to these. Shows the ignorance of some people.

Right now it is all Binsif can do to simply pay that whopping 12 cents dividend.

I wanna know why it is they got the dividend figured out, but haven't released earnings. Next to UP, they'll probably look pretty bad for the quarter...

PH

UP Wings !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rule

> There's also been a rumor that BNSF is secretly paying NS's
> payroll because the latter is secretly bankrupt.
>
> Also a rumor that BNSF actually paid for NS's share of
> Conrail and is just letting them run it for now.

> What is really pathetic is how many suckers there are to these. Shows the ignorance of some people.

Careful, P-hogger, you may fit your own description...

I believe the small wings are no longer being applied to repaints.

rattenne wrote:

> Careful, P-hogger, you may fit your own description...

Only thing I'm a sucker for is a pretty girl...

And Milw 261,

And any unit that has working AC this time of year!

PH

IIRC, J Bromley mentioned a few months ago that there was indeed a crackdown of sorts within the company to control how the wings image is used---ie only for locos, and not for corporate stationary, etc.

Hi, let me introduce myself. My name is Viki and I work with John Bromley. I have been visiting this forum for quite a while learning alot about railfanning.

As it happens, I am in a position to explain the misunderstood information about the winged logo. As I am sure that John has explained before me.

The winged logo was brought out of retirement to be used exclusively on the EMD SD-70M and GE C44ACCTE locomovtives. It was never intended to be used for any other usage.

The UP Shield is the company logo.

Due to misuse of the winged logo and other derivitive logos, it was becoming more unclear what the company logo actually was.

We reintroduced the UP Shield along with our brand campaign this year and are becoming better custodians of our identity.

I know the winged version is much beloved, we love it too (when it is used in its proper place.)

Hope this clears up the confusion.
John B.: Hope I explained this correctly as I got this straight from you too :)

Welcome, Vicki!

So, your answer really doesn't answer the underlying question: wings or no wings? Are they still to be restricted to the 70M's and CTE's, or will they continue to be used on all "safety cab" locomotives? Or will the winged herald be retired again?

Hey, if you do, could y'all remove it from that 6936 Centennial? It's kinda silly on there, being that the locomotive is part of the "heritage" fleet and never wore the wings while in regular service.

dick palmer
hoping for a return to the ridiculously small little bitty teeny tiny shield (there's Brand Recognition for ya!) on the big yellow noses of UP locomotives. ..

PumpkinHogger wrote:

> BobE wrote:
> Right now it is all Binsif can do to simply pay that whopping 12 cents dividend.
>
> I wanna know why it is they got the dividend figured out, but haven't released earnings.



Dividend policy is usually set long in advance, and doesn't specifically relate to any quarter's earnings. There's often a target of paying out 30% or so of expected earnings. It's also set up so that the same amount is paid every quarter. They might increase annually, but they'll only cut a dividend under severe duress (UP did it in 1998, NS in 2000, and I think CSX did as well in 2000).

Generally, the accounting group is going to have some idea of where the earnings are going for a quarter well before the actual announcement. We often see "pre-announcements" in the third month of each quarter. Companies know from looking at two months' results whether they can meet the expectations for the full three months or not. If they can't, they're pretty well obligated by securities law and custom to let investors know that the results aren't that good.

How that relates to dividends is that if the results are going to be spectacularly awful and there's a chance that the company won't have any money and won't be able to borrow to keep itself going, then the dividend would have to be omitted.



>Next to UP, they'll probably look pretty bad for the quarter...
>


UP's numbers are going to be a very tough act to follow. I don't expect to see BNSF come in anywhere close to 23% growth in earnings like UP did.

BobE

Wings on the SD70s and CTEs are the one and only allowed usage that I am aware of today.

Yes wings are still allowed on these locos only.

Although John may have more specific informaton for individual locos that I am not aware of.

Bob E

How can you be sure that the 23% isn't help along by "generally accepted accounting principles": You know the ones favored by Global Xing, WorldCom and those other paragons of corporate governance and virtue??

Hmmm... then what about the many C44-9W's and SD60M's thta have been stickered with wings over the last year - not to mention the many standard cabs like ex-DRGW SD40T-2 UP8605 and the few C40-8's I've seen and the the SD38-2's, GP60's, GP38-2's ...

...what else am I missing?

Were these other units boo-boos?

-Ryan aka "espeeboy" on the ex-WP Oakland Sub MP11.2

http://www.geocities.com/espeeboy

http://groups.yahoo.com/espee_forever


vikia wrote:

> Wings on the SD70s and CTEs are the one and only allowed
> usage that I am aware of today.
>
> Yes wings are still allowed on these locos only.

---

A couple of observations:

1) Thanks to UP for debunking this rumor... I saw the original post on another list which was being refered to here, and considered the source, and snorted dirisively.

2) This was a classic Trainorders thread... it took only three responses to get COMPLETELY off-topic (was "UP Wings" but became "BNSF dividend")... nice work, guys! :-)

Brian, amused by TO as always...