Union Pacific Railroad - History

History

The original company, prior to later uniting with the Central Pacific Railroad, was incorporated on July 1, 1862 under an act of Congress entitled Pacific Railroad Act of 1862. The act was approved by President Abraham Lincoln, and it provided for the construction of railroads from the Missouri River to the Pacific as a war measure for the preservation of the Union. It was constructed westwardly from Council Bluffs to meet the Central Pacific line, which was constructed eastwardly from San Francisco Bay. The line was constructed primarily by Irish labor who had learned their craft during the recent Civil War. The two lines were joined together at Promontory Summit, Utah, fifty-three miles west of Ogden on May 10, 1869, hence creating the first transcontinental railroad in North America. Under the guidance of its dominant stockholder Dr. Thomas Clark Durant, the namesake of the city of Durant, Iowa, the first rails were laid in Omaha. Subsequently, UP took over three Mormon-built roads: the Utah Central Rail Road extending south from Ogden, Utah, to Salt Lake City, the Utah Southern Railroad extending south from Salt Lake City into the Utah Valley, and the Utah Northern Railroad extending north from Ogden into Idaho; and it built or absorbed local lines that gave it access to Denver and to Portland, Oregon, and the Pacific Northwest. It acquired the Kansas Pacific (originally called the Union Pacific, Eastern Division, though in essence a separate railroad). It also owned narrow gauge trackage into the heart of the Colorado Rockies and a standard gauge line south from Denver across New Mexico into Texas (both parts of the Union Pacific, Denver and Gulf Railway).

UP was entangled in the Crédit Mobilier scandal, exposed in 1872, that involved bribing congressmen and stock speculations. Its early troubles led to bankruptcy during the 1870s, the result of which was reorganization of the Union Pacific Railroad as the Union Pacific Railway on January 24, 1880, with its dominant stockholder being Jay Gould. The new company also declared bankruptcy, in 1893, but emerged on July 1, 1897, reverting to the original name, Union Pacific Railroad. Such minor changes in corporate titles were a common result of reorganization after bankruptcy among American railroads. This period saw the UP sell off some of its holdings; the Union Pacific Railway, Central Branch became the Central Branch of the Missouri Pacific Railroad and the Southern Branch was acquired by the newly incorporated Missouri Kansas Texas Railroad in 1870. However, the UP soon recovered, and was strong enough to take control of Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) in 1901 and then was ordered in 1913 by the U.S. Supreme Court to surrender control of the same. UP also founded the Sun Valley resort in Idaho in 1936, the UP engineering department in Omaha designed the first ski chairlift that summer. The MP and MKT both came back into the UP fold in the 1980s. On September 11, 1996 UP finally acquired SP in a transaction envisioned nearly a century earlier.

The headquarters of the railroad operation of the UP has been in Omaha, Nebraska, since its inception. Currently they are in the Union Pacific Center, completed in 2003. Other important UP facilities in Omaha have included the Union Pacific Railroad Omaha Shops Facility and the Harriman Dispatch Center. The corporate headquarters of the Union Pacific Corporation were located in New York City from its initial founding in the 1860s until Drew Lewis became CEO in the mid-1980s, when they were relocated to Bethlehem PA, and then later to Dallas TX; the corporate headquarters of the Union Pacific Corporation are now also in Omaha.

In the tables "UP" includes OSL-OWR&N-LA&SL-StJ&GI; 1925–1944 passenger-mile totals do not include Laramie North Park & Western, Saratoga & Encampment Valley, or Pacific & Idaho Northern, and none of the totals includes Spokane International or Mount Hood. From ICC annual reports, except 1979 is from Moody's.

On December 31, 1925 UP-OSL-OWRN-LA&SL-StJ&GI operated 9,834 route-miles and 15,265 track-miles; at the end of 1980 Union Pacific operated 9266 route-miles and 15647 miles of track. Moody's shows 220,697 million revenue ton-miles in 1993 on the expanded system (17,835 route-miles at the end of the year).