Western Railroad Discussion > UP #2002 current status

Today in the yard at NRE Mt. Vernon (IL) UP's "Salt Lake 2002" SD70M sits on an outside track. To get repainted into yellow or getting some work done?

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UP says there for paint. I would think if it was going to be yellow it would go to NLR.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/17 18:34 by upengr21.

I wonder how long the dirt will hold gauge?

I've seen a lot of small rail yards where it worked for years...

SD45X Wrote:
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> I wonder how long the dirt will hold gauge?

James Nelson
Thornton, CO
www.flickr.com/mojaveflyer

I don't know if it's just me, but that looks like fresh paint on that unit. Note the bright (seemly fresh primer) grey paint applied to the radiator fans, if that's a lacking example, I hope the bright blue isn't lying to us. Only time will tell, but seeing these photos makes me much more optimistic. It would make absolutely no sense to contract those two locomotives out to NRE if they were to be repainted yellow.

Schon Norris
Salt Lake City, UT
Railroad Roll-By Podcast



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/17 05:14 by Scone_Empire.

For what it's worth, the 2002 arrived at Mt. Vernon with the gray painted cooling fans.


Chris Toth
NSDash9.com

What wouldn't make sense to me, though, is why they would repaint it into a scheme marking an event that happened nearly 16 years ago.

toledopatch Wrote:
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> What wouldn't make sense to me, though, is why
> they would repaint it into a scheme marking an
> event that happened nearly 16 years ago.

Pretty much applies to all the heritage units right? Why celebrate a merger that happened 20-30 years ago.

toledopatch Wrote:
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> What wouldn't make sense to me, though, is why
> they would repaint it into a scheme marking an
> event that happened nearly 16 years ago.

I'll add my 2 cents to the good rhetorical question by smudgepot.

Salt Lake City has a significant influence over UP in terms of shareholders. Whether it's the people involved or the amount of shares, it's difficult to pinpoint, but regardless of the specifics, the influence is there. No one messes with the event that brought pride to the city.

I've been onto this conspiracy before:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,4088390

FYI, just to be clear, I have no animosity against Salt Lake City. In fact, I've enjoyed my visits there.

I, too, very much hope the UP has chosen to
keep the 2002 in her present attractive 2002
Olympic paint scheme.

But this year, the Union Pacific did not hold a
traditional Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City.
Instead, they held a completely virtual Annual
Meeting, on May 11, 2017, at 11 am CDT.

https://www.up.com/investor/shareholders/

This is relevant to the discussion about how much
influence Salt Lake City may have over the Union
Pacific RR because this year the UP held a completely
virtual Annual Meeting that was webcast live from
somewhere in the Central Time Zone, probably from its
HQ in Omaha, as Omaha is in the Central Time Zone, while
Salt Lake City is in the Mountain Time Zone.

This, alone, makes me think that Salt Lake City's influence
over the Union Pacific RR has lessened a great deal.

cchan006 wrote -- on 08-01-2016 at 22:43 in this thread:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,4088390

SNIP ---
> Large shareholder presence in Salt Lake City, and that's
> where the meetings are usually held. I sure wouldn't want
> to piss them off by giving the Olympic Units the "Jenks
> Armour Yellow" treatment.

Charlie --
What did you mean by "Large shareholder presence"?
Lots of shareholders, each with a small number of shares,
or a few shareholders, each with a huge number of shares?
My guess is -- many people, each with a small number of shares.

No large corporation -- and the Union Pacific RR is a very
large corporation -- pays any attention to those who hold a
small number of shares. Large corporations need to, and do,
pay a lot of attention to those who hold a huge number of shares,
and those with huge numbers of shares are large institutions, not
individuals.

Wonder what will happen to the UP 2002's paint scheme? As I said
above, I very much hope she keeps her beautiful Olympic paint scheme,
but the UP will do what it wants with her. I have very much enjoyed
all the photos of her in that great Olympic paint scheme.

I don't think the fans are in primer. I think they are peeling.

Margaret_SP_fan Wrote:
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> Wonder what will happen to the UP 2002's paint scheme? As I said
> above, I very much hope she keeps her beautiful Olympic paint scheme,
> but the UP will do what it wants with her. I have very much enjoyed
> all the photos of her in that great Olympic paint scheme.

I personally don't have the data to pinpoint whether it's larger number of small shareholders, or small number of large shareholders, but your theory that it's large number of small shareholders seems plausible.

When I attended the shareholder meeting in SLC about 6 years ago, when Jim Young was still around as CEO, the attendance was surprising small for a company with such a large market cap. It seems the shareholders are more into voting than attending, so making the meeting "virtual" seems a good cost cutting move. No need for the execs to fly to SLC (no UP business train in the area when I went 6 years ago).

Whether the SLC influence lessened or not, UP still considers the Olympic Unit paint scheme to be important enough where up until now, the units haven't been painted over Armour Yellow. So until I hear an authoritative answer on why, I'm sticking with my conspiracy that they still exist because of Salt Lake City civic pride. There's little or no financial benefits I see otherwise - I'm sorry to disappoint those who refuse to think past money. :-)

That is peeling paint bc if was being painting it have more primer on the engine and which it doesn't...

Posted from Android

well they touched up the heritage units, so maybe they'll paint the new cooling fans, battery boxes and pilot/nose, and whatever else needs attention, the paint as a whole probably is good.

dan Wrote:
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> well they touched up the heritage units,

I thought the heritage units, completed so far, received complete repaints, NOT a "touch up".

so maybe
> they'll paint the new cooling fans, battery boxes
> and pilot/nose, and whatever else needs attention,
> the paint as a whole probably is good.

cchan006 --
No large corporation ever thinks past money these days.
Just ask any of their employees and customers.

AFAIK, the people on the UP's Board of Directors used to
be mostly Mormons, which is why their Annual Meetings were
always held in Salt Lake City. That seems no longer to
be true, or the UP would still have in-person traditional
Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City.

Not having an in-person Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City is
a strong non-verbal signal that whatever influence over the
UP the city of Salt Lake City may have had in the past is
largely gone. And none of the huge institutions that hold
huge numbers of shares of UP stock have never had their HQs
in Salt lake City, so they have no reason to even favor
having in-person Annual Meetings, much less ones held in
Salt Lake City.

Times change, and so do corporate Boards of Directors, and
thus so do their priorities.

(What I can't understand is why the UP had bothered to hold
traditional in-person Annual Meetings at all once live webcaasts
became easy. I don't know how many other large corporations are
changing to webcasting their Annual Meetings. That has got to be
a lot less expensive that traditional in-person Annual Meetings.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/17 10:51 by Margaret_SP_fan.

I don't have numbers at hand, but I'm sure more than 85% of UNP shares are held by the big index funds and managers.

The lesson in the CSX putsch was get the big share holders, pension funds, etc on your side and you will win.

Posted from Android

After thinking over what real benefits a traditional
in-person annual meeting could have, I came to the
conclusion that there is a lot of value in face-to-face
truly private meetings between the high-level people from
large shareholders and high-level people in the corporation
holding the traditional in-person annual meeting.

"Face time" is extremely important, and always will be,
and many things need to be discussed in private.

Sorry for the thread drift, but IMO healthy, normal
conversations wander all over the map. And we all can
learn a lot from such conversations. I know I have.

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> I don't have numbers at hand, but I'm sure more
> than 85% of UNP shares are held by the big index
> funds and managers.
>
> The lesson in the CSX putsch was get the big share
> holders, pension funds, etc on your side and you
> will win.

It's pretty interesting that this is the second time CSX was targeted by hedge funds in recent memory. TCI and "Children's Fund" being the previous attempt about 9 years ago?

It's also interesting Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific have avoided such shareholder shenanigans, and is it coincidence that both UP and NS have Heritage Units and support steam, while CSX doesn't? Heritage Units = poison pill against hostile takeover? :-)

Buffett has in-person annual stockholders meetings, and the attendance grows each year. I'm sure he's the exception though. brc600

Margaret_SP_fan Wrote:
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> cchan006 --
> No large corporation ever thinks past money these
> days.
> Just ask any of their employees and customers.
>
> AFAIK, the people on the UP's Board of Directors
> used to
> be mostly Mormons, which is why their Annual
> Meetings were
> always held in Salt Lake City. That seems no
> longer to
> be true, or the UP would still have in-person
> traditional
> Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City.
>
> Not having an in-person Annual Meeting in Salt
> Lake City is
> a strong non-verbal signal that whatever influence
> over the
> UP the city of Salt Lake City may have had in the
> past is
> largely gone. And none of the huge institutions
> that hold
> huge numbers of shares of UP stock have never had
> their HQs
> in Salt lake City, so they have no reason to even
> favor
> having in-person Annual Meetings, much less ones
> held in
> Salt Lake City.
>
> Times change, and so do corporate Boards of
> Directors, and
> thus so do their priorities.
>
> (What I can't understand is why the UP had
> bothered to hold
> traditional in-person Annual Meetings at all once
> live webcaasts
> became easy. I don't know how many other large
> corporations are
> changing to webcasting their Annual Meetings. That
> has got to be
> a lot less expensive that traditional in-person
> Annual Meetings.)