Steam & Excursion > The good ole days of UP heritage steam

I started riding or chasing UP heritage steam back in 1961.  Here is an album of pix from over the years.  Help with caption info would be appreciated.

The good ole days of UP heritage steam

JBWX

A collection of fantastic photographs, thanks for posting!

Thomas Eckhardt

Very nice, thanks for sharing!

pic 1 looks like julesburg line, or dent branch 2nd guess, the pic you have posted think it's laramie i would guess is rock springs

Enough to make a grown man cry.

dan Wrote:
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> pic 1 looks like julesburg line, or dent branch
> 2nd guess, the pic you have posted think it's
> laramie i would guess is rock springs

Thanks.  I lost of lot of info when my old website died.  But it is kinda fun playing detective.  Folks here have a lot of info, thank God Kodak dated (most) of the slides they processed, and Google Earth is a great tool.  Using Google Earth I figured out the shot I thought was a Laramie was actualy at Rawlins; one of the buildings (the Wyoming Bar) in the background is still there, although the hotel next door was torn down.  So now I am working on the going away shot of the 3985 and 844 leaving, think Green River, but I need to pull the slides to get an approximate date.

JBWX  



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/16 12:58 by jbwest.

What a great group of photos John. My personal fav is from '61, 844 has white/silver tires, running boards, a guy hanging way out the cab window, jerry cans, even a yellow one (Gad!) on top of the tender...seems like things really are quite cyclical...if that locomotive could only talk. Thanks for putting those together, very cool.

​Cheers, Dave

Aweosme pics man!

well since the track is single track main, could that be Emkay, does it have sidings, to flat to be harriman i think...

dan Wrote:
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> well since the track is single track main, could
> that be Emkay, does it have sidings, to flat to be
> harriman i think...

Here is another picture taken at the same location as the first.  We went into a siding for 103 to run around us.  We might also have been run around by another City   We were running at high speed and made one previous photo stop.  I think we were west of Laramie.  I remember after we lost all this time letting 103 around us, we arrived at the next station stop before 103 had left, so we were making passenger trains speeds.  This was back in the days when management and crews were still familiar with steam and knew what it could do.  We did not seem to have any speed restriction.  At the time I was very frustrated at the paucity of photo runbys.  But in retrospect the neat thing about the trip is all the huge UP steam infrastructure was still in place at places like Green River and usable.

JBWX

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looking at the pole line and stuff maybe between tie siding and laramie then...lets see some western varnish!  

life wasted chasing trains.....i can relate

dan Wrote:
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> looking at the pole line and stuff maybe between
> tie siding and laramie then...lets see some
> western varnish!  
>
> life wasted chasing trains.....i can relate

Doing more research. Based on checking the little numbers on my slides the runaround was between Rawlins and Green River.

JBWX

I looked at that twice before I realized it wasn't a painting. (Perhaps "yet", because of the artists on here.)

Rebecca Morgan
Jacobsburg, OH

Your two photos of the 844 crossing the bridge and trestle in the middle of your slides were from our Oregon Symphony trip from Portland to Bend and back with a layover overnight in Bend. The first photo is of us heading northbound the next morning crossing the bridge over the Crooked River and the second was a trestle which I believe was near the same location.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

Outstanding shots!  Thanks for sharing.
GK

...discussed earlier turns out to be Table Rock, WY.  I know folks here have been holding their breath for this answer.

JBWX

 

Bob3985 Wrote:
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> Your two photos of the 844 crossing the bridge and
> trestle in the middle of your slides were from our
> Oregon Symphony trip from Portland to Bend and
> back with a layover overnight in Bend. The first
> photo is of us heading northbound the next morning
> crossing the bridge over the Crooked River and the
> second was a trestle which I believe was near the
> same location.

Thanks Bob.  I have added that info to the captions.

JBWX

jbwest Wrote:
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> Bob3985 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Your two photos of the 844 crossing the bridge
> and
> > trestle in the middle of your slides were from
> our
> > Oregon Symphony trip from Portland to Bend and
> > back with a layover overnight in Bend. The
> first
> > photo is of us heading northbound the next
> morning
> > crossing the bridge over the Crooked River and
> the
> > second was a trestle which I believe was near
> the
> > same location.
>
> Thanks Bob.  I have added that info to the
> captions.
>
> JBWX

The other bridge shot is at Madras, OR.

Realist Wrote:
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> The other bridge shot is at Madras, OR.

What I found interesting is that in locating the bridge on Google Earth I noticed the Willow Creek Canyon trail below the bridge had some sweeping curves and evidence of a tunnel.  I traced it back to where it joins the current OT.  I am guessing that is the former UP line that was abandoned in favor of trackage rights on the OT.  I understand the currrent arrangement is a haulage agreement with the BNSF so that OT Junction is no longer an active connection.

JBWX