Union Pacific No. 119

The No. 119 was a 4-4-0 steam locomotive which made history as one of the two locomotives (the other being the Jupiter) to meet at Promontory Summit during the Golden Spike ceremony commemorating the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad.

No. 119 was built by Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works of Paterson, New Jersey in 1868 along with numbers 116, 117, 118 and 120.

This engine was scrapped in 1903, and a replica was built in 1979, 76 years after the scrapping.

Promontory Summit

No. 119 was stationed in Ogden, Utah, when a call came from Thomas C. Durant, traveling to Promontory, who needed an engine. Similar to Leland Stanford and the Jupiter, previous misfortunes allowed No. 119 to take her place in history. Durant, the vice president of the Union Pacific Railroad was traveling on the so-called Durant Special for the ceremony at Promontory. A swollen river had washed away some supports to the Devil's Gate Bridge. Durant's engineer refused to take the current engine across but did consent to nudge the lighter passenger cars across the bridge. The bridge held, the cars made it across but Durant and his entourage were left without an engine. Durant's plight was answered when No. 119 was sent from Ogden to take the Durant Special the short distance to Promontory where it came nose to nose with the Central Pacific's Jupiter.

Union Pacific Railroad

The Union Pacific Railroad (reporting mark UP) is a Class I line haul freight railroad that operates nearly 8,500 locomotives over 32,000 route-miles in 23 states west of Chicago, Illinois and New Orleans, Louisiana. The Union Pacific Railroad network is the largest in the United States and is serviced by more than 47,000 employees.

Union Pacific Railroad is the principal operating company of Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE: UNP); both are headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Over the years Union Pacific Corporation has grown by acquiring other railroads, notably the Missouri Pacific, Chicago & North Western, Western Pacific, Missouri-Kansas-Texas, and the Southern Pacific (including the Denver & Rio Grande Western).

Union Pacific Corporation's main competitor is the BNSF Railway, the nation's second largest freight railroad, which also primarily services the Continental U.S. west of the Mississippi River. Together, the two railroads have a duopoly on all transcontinental freight rail lines in the U.S.

Union Pacific (disambiguation)

The Union Pacific is the largest railroad network in the United States.

Union Pacific may also refer to:

See also

Union Pacific (film)

Union Pacific is a 1939 American dramatic western film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Joel McCrea. Based on the novel Trouble Shooter by Western fiction author Ernest Haycox, the film is about the building of the railroad across the American West.

Blurb

The 1862 Pacific Railroad Act signed by President Lincoln authorizes pushing the Union Pacific Railroad westward across the wilderness toward California, but financial opportunist Asa Barrows hopes to profit from obstructing it. Chief troubleshooter Jeff Butler has his hands full fighting Barrows' agent, gambler Sid Campeau. Campeau's partner Dick Allen is Jeff's war buddy and rival suitor for engineer's daughter Molly Monahan. Who will survive the effort to push the railroad through at any cost?

Historical context

Union Pacific was released in 1939 two months after John Ford's Stagecoach, which film historians consider responsible for transforming the Hollywood Western from "a mostly low budget, B film affair." Wheeler M. Dixon, for example, notes that after the appearance of these two films (Union Pacific and Stagecoach), the western was “something worthy of adult attention and serious criticism, and therefore a yardstick against which all westerns have been subsequently measured”.