Steam & Excursion > UP Deadline in Cheyenne

A few days ago gcm posted a photo of a westbound UP passenger train, pulled by diesel locomotives, preparing to depart from Cheyenne in 1975.  On August 1, 1956, I stood in the exact spot from where gcm took his photo, but facing 180 degrees around to take the attached photos of a UP deadline, including Challenger #3989.  Our westbound train had stopped in Cheyenne and I had taken that opportunity to cross over the tracks ahead of our locomotives to take these photos.  After taking these photos I raced back to our train, where my parents were in full panic mode out of fear that I would miss our train.  The locomotives in these photos were a few of the many dozens in deadlines at various locations east and west of the Cheyenne station, a sight of a kind I had never seen before and have never forgotten.

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Wow, it looks like 3989 is already plowing up daisies! I wonder why that is?
 

Thanks for finding and posting these shots!
It must have have been an incredible (and sad) scene to witness.
Gary

What a great depiction of the end of an era. Yes, those were in scrap storage in the old yard which was the original yard built in the beginning. A few of those tracks still exist today as old 8,9,and 11.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

Always made me sad to see deadlines.  Didn't they put up a bunch of engines without "winterizing" them first because it was thought they  would never need them again?  Lot of frozen stuff.

Hmmm, 1956 is the date, so some of these engines actually DID run again?  Weren't there a couple of mini-revivals of steam over Sherman in 1957-58?

march_hare Wrote:
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> Hmmm, 1956 is the date, so some of these engines
> actually DID run again?  Weren't there a couple
> of mini-revivals of steam over Sherman in 1957-58?

And in 1959, too.

Wow! Great photos kid!. (hee,hee). Just wondering if "haze" seen on photos is winter, smoke, or fading from time?..also are those dead-end stub tracks, or gravel placed in front of locomotives over top of continuing tracks?..Thanks for sharing these!

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/17 13:35 by RailRat.

I believe the hazy effect of the photos is strictly aging.  The weather at the time was not particularly overcast.  I think the piles of dirt/gravel are on continuing track, not stub tracks.

Some who have responded to my post have commented that the UP ran steam after 1956.  This is certainly true, but I tend to doubt the locomotives in my photo ever ran again.  Bob Kreiger, for one, might know.  I traveled with my parents through Cheyenne again in the summer of 1958, two years later, and most of the locomotives I had seen in 1956 were gone, presumably scrapped.  A few remained.  This suggests that a great many UP steam locomotives were scrapped during the 1956-58 period.

Those pictures brought back a lot of memories. Thanks for posting them. I grew up in Erie, PA and we had relatives in southern California. Dad worked for the NKP and every summer my dad, mom, sister, and I would take the Nickel Plate to Chicago and then the UP to California. Since we rode the train for free on dad's pass, our UP accommodations were on UP's #5 and 6 which was kind of a glorified mail train. It stopped everywhere and sometimes for quite a while. In '56, '57, & '58 we had Berkshires running on the NKP and UP still had steam between Cheyenne and Laramie. We stopped in Cheyenne long enough where we had plenty of time to walk the platform and I remember those deadlines quite vividly. I think it was '57 when we saw an 800 on the point of a westbound passenger train sitting in the station and even a Big Boy which passed us on an adjacent track away from the station. We saw several Big Boy's and Challengers between Cheyenne and Laramie. I don't remember if their territory extended all the way to Ogden. For a kid interested in steam you can bet that my face was glued to the window on both the NKP and UP. In "58 there were quite a few gondola cars loaded with the parts of scrapped UP steam. A sad sight. UP 5 & 6 were pulled by three E9's if I recall.
I'll always remember our returning home from our '58 trip. We arrived home about two days before the end of June and on July 1st my mom sent me to a little corner store adjacent to the NKP mainline on 19th street. Looking back I remember the day was kind of gloomy. It almost felt like it was going to rain. The weather was appropriate for what was about to happen. Upon leaving the store I saw that the eastbound block occupation signal was red which indicated that something was probably coming west so I sat down on the steps of the store and finally I heard a whistle. Westbound Berkshire 719 passed me and it was not until later that I learned that I just witnessed the last Buffalo division run of a Berkshire in regular service. 


Jim Kreider

glibby Wrote:
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> I believe the hazy effect of the photos is
> strictly aging.  The weather at the time was not
> particularly overcast.  I think the piles of
> dirt/gravel are on continuing track, not stub
> tracks.
>
> Some who have responded to my post have commented
> that the UP ran steam after 1956.  This is
> certainly true, but I tend to doubt the
> locomotives in my photo ever ran again.  Bob
> Kreiger, for one, might know.  I traveled with my
> parents through Cheyenne again in the summer of
> 1958, two years later, and most of the locomotives
> I had seen in 1956 were gone, presumably
> scrapped.  A few remained.  This suggests that a
> great many UP steam locomotives were scrapped
> during the 1956-58 period.

That Challenger looks like it has been cannibalized for parts. The compressor shield door is open and the steam supply pipe for the left hand front engine appears to be missing. I have some books that if I recall correctly give road numbers and the years they were retired/stricken from the UP. I'll try to look this locomotive up.

Posted from iPhone

UP 3989 was built by Alco Schnectady works in August 1943 with construction number 70178 and vacated from the roster in August of 1960.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/17 16:44 by Bob3985.

It was written that the US government would not allow some power to retired, challengers and big boys, that they were required to have a strategic reserve with some units not retired till 62 or even later?

Utahrails may have that answer,  fact or fiction guys?

lwilton Wrote:
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> Wow, it looks like 3989 is already plowing up
> daisies! I wonder why that is?
>  
It appears that the pilot truck and the front engine went on the ground during the last shove in that track and she did a little plowing in the process.

Bob3985 Wrote:
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> What a great depiction of the end of an era. Yes,
> those were in scrap storage in the old yard which
> was the original yard built in the beginning. A
> few of those tracks still exist today as old
> 8,9,and 11.

Where would that be in regards to where the shops and depot are now?

The depot was directly behind me.  The view in the photos is southwest, and the depot was northeast from this location.  The photo posted by gcm a few days ago (which I mentioned in my original post) shows the view of the depot from the exact location where I was.

The current roundhouse and shop facilities are east of this location, to the left and out of view of my photos.

Chico43 Wrote:
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> lwilton Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Wow, it looks like 3989 is already plowing up
> > daisies! I wonder why that is?
> >  
> It appears that the pilot truck and the front
> engine went on the ground during the last shove in
> that track and she did a little plowing in the
> process.
If you look close at photo #2, there are same looking piles of (gravel?) on the other tracks too. I'm assuming put there maybe on purpose, as possibly a stop marker of of some kind?

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA

dan Wrote:
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> It was written that the US government would not
> allow some power to retired, challengers and big
> boys, that they were required to have a strategic
> reserve with some units not retired till 62 or
> even later?
>
> Utahrails may have that answer,  fact or fiction
> guys?

Today, that would be called "fake news."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/17 23:23 by Realist.

 Where would that be in regards to where the shops and depot are now?

That would be across the mainlines and west of the depot. The east lead for these tracks is located just north of the current section of the roundhouse and thay run west with a lead that enters the mainline 4 by Snyder Avenue. The yard used to call this west lead the Crow Creek lead named for the creek underpass just west of there.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

Frisco1522 Wrote:
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> Always made me sad to see deadlines.  Didn't they
> put up a bunch of engines without "winterizing"
> them first because it was thought they  would
> never need them again?  Lot of frozen stuff.

I know that I had heard something along this line as well.  The story that I heard was that a lot of the latest Challengers were among the locomotives that suffered significant freeze damage, as they were stored in Chyenne.  These were supposed to be "Stored Servicable", but when they went to return them to service, they were faced with large repairs.  The first series of Challengers that had been laid up in Oregon had been properly stored, and they were returned to service instead.  As I said, I read it somewhere a while ago.  Perhaps it was in TRAINS magazine. 

Steve