Union Pacific's Historical Blunder?

[nanaimo73]

So, how much does it cost UP to run a train 40 miles? Probably not very much. Less than an hours wages for the crew. Perhaps 50 gallons of fuel. It can't be that much. Now lets say the train has to climb 1,000 feet and go back down the other side. I would guess the fuel usage would probably triple, and it might take two hours. If Union Pacific ran 70 trains a day over that hill, costs would start to mount. You would need three tracks instead of one, for instance.If UP has been doing it for 136 years, the costs must be enormous.Perhaps $100 million? $1 billion? The Company could figure it out, I sure can't.
Construction of the Union Pacific started in 1865 in Omaha and proceded west along the Platte river. At present day North Platte, the river forked. UP could follow the South Platte River to Denver, but then the Rockies blocked further progress. How about the North Platte? UP makes heavy use of this route today for PRB coal trains as far as Joyce. This route could have continued to Fort Laramie, over South Pass and back to the present route around Fort Bridger.The Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail took this route. The Pony Express ran this way for a year and a half until it was killed by the telegraph. Union Pacific chose to split the two. There were no settlements at the time, so the railroad founded Cheyenne and Laramie. Cheyenne became the Capitol in 1869 and Wyoming became a State in 1890. This route topped Sherman at 8,247 feet and was later lowered to 8,013 feet.
In 1909 the Union Pacific surveyed a cut-off from Yoder (near Joyce) to Medicine Bow along the Laramie River. This would have crossed the current BNSF (C&S) route at Wheatland, Wyoming's first permanent trading post (1834). The cut-off was not built because of the crippling effect it would have had on Cheyenne and Laramie.
Why didn't they go that route in the first place, did the surveyers miss it? Not saving 40 miles in distance and 1000 feet in altitude is a blunder in my books.
A lot of you out there write a heck of a lot better than I do.Do some research and you could have an article in Trains.
.

[chad thomas]

I think your doing a good job yourself. That would make for an interesting article. Why don't you want to do the reasearch and submit it? It sounds like a good idea.

[nanaimo73]

April 23, 2005 was my first time on a computer and I doubt I could do the proper research. As well,I have never been to Wyoming to look over the area and I don't know if I'll ever get there. I think Gabe could do a heck of an article.Thanks for the reply.

[chad thomas]

Aw come on, have a little faith in yourself. [:D]

[nanaimo73]

I would like to know if the UPHS has ever done an article on this topic in their magazine.
We must have several of their members using this forum.

[chad thomas]

check it out:

http://www.uphs.org/

[BNSFGP38]

Its like that because.............

How boring it would be to see the 844 and Challenger just toot along on flat track when they do excursions. [:o)][:D][8D]

[tree68]

Barring other historical reasons (land disputes and the like) - you must recall that the surveyors probably didn't have the nice aerial photographs and topographical maps we take for granted today. They may have simply not seen the better route at the time.

[dldance]

the short answer is Indians - the surveryers working across Wyoming were trying to avoid being killed by the Northern Shoshone. In fact they were trying to out run an Indian attack when they spotted the grade that became Sherman Hill.

dd

[nanaimo73]

Wheatland had been there over 30 years, so scores of settlers and frontiersmen must have followed the Laramie River west.

[miniwyo]

Nanimo- I am a Wyoming native, Feel free to ask me any questions about wyoming you like on here or by email at [e-mail] If I can't answer you question i know many who I can ask and get the answer.

[eastside]

Those are only the direct incremental costs.
From UP’s 2004 annual report:
Fuel: $1.8 billion (will probably be much more this year)

Here are some of the other costs each train must share:
Depreciation: $1 billion
Casualty costs: $694 m
Interest on debt: $527 m
Salaries and wages: $4.1 b
(Also including administration: dispatchers, marketing, sales, and management)
Property taxes

What’s interesting to me is the size of the “casualty costs,” they’re much higher than interest and a significant proportion of S&W. Apparently UP is caught up in the web of asbestos lawsuits.

These costs are not negligible. So each train is pulling quite a load. When companies get into cost-cutting mode and want a quick fix they tend to focus on the "other" costs rather than improving operating efficiencies.

There was a better crossing of the continental divide north of the original route that was undetected. From what I’ve read, even though they didn’t get the best route the UP was very satisfied. By the standards of the day you could hardly hold the surveyors remiss. In fact, Ambrose considered their accomplishment almost heroic, considering that they were being constantly hassled by the Indians. By the time the UP found out about the better route, the whole infrastructure (including Cheyenne, WY) was too well established.

UP’s original route was dictated by government subsidies, which rewarded amount of track laid and disregarded efficiency. This gave Will Durant, the president of UP, added incentive to extort payoffs from towns along the route by threatening to bypass them if they didn’t pay. If they paid up, the UP got the double bonus of the payoff and government subsidy for the distance added by the detour. Later, after Harriman got control, the UP straightened out much the Overland route. In addition, trains were slower, shorter, lighter, and could take curves of small radius. Several years ago, Trains did an article remarking that the Overland route was about as efficiently laid out as possible for modern trains.

[PNWRMNM]

I doubt that UP made the blunder alleged. The South Pass route was well known before the UP started to survey. I suspect that there may be a few miles of very steep grade somewhere that dominted the issue.

Mac McCulloch

[nanaimo73]

I said the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail and the Pony Express used the South Pass route. The best route, the proposed 1909 route, would have used the Yoder line to Veteran WY, and then through Wheatland to a point on the present mainline around Medicine Bow. The current line would have been used from there. The new construction would have been about 85 miles, while a South Pass route would have met the current main at Granger, another 240 miles further west. This line was not built because of the effect it would have had on Laramie and Cheyenne.
There could have been a steep grade somewhere, I would certainly have a look if I was in that area.

[PNWRMNM]

Nanaimo,

Laramie and Cheyene were both creations of the UPRR and would not have affected the original location decision.

Mac

[nanaimo73]

I am saying the UP did not go ahead and build this surveyed line in 1909 because of what it would have done to those cities. I say they should have built it in 1867.

[Anonymous]

The goal during construction of a lot of railroads was often a ruling grade no more than x. The grade at the other end of Wyoming is actually worse than Sherman. Curvature could be a factor as well. Later on, UP had extensive shops at Cheyene & Laramie and the cost to relocate those would also be a factor. Moving the line farther north would also affect the connections to much larger Denver.

[dehusman]

Unless you have documentation, I doubt that the impact on Cheyenne or Laramie had much to do with it, after all the UP bypassed Salt Lake City and that was certainly the biggest city (possibly the only "city") in Utah.

I think maybe the ridge that shows on the Topo maps along the Albany-Laramie county line (west of Wheatland) might have had something to do with it.

Dave H.

[nanaimo73]

The top corner of page 39 in the May 1969 Trains magazine is where I got the information about the effect on Cheyenne and Laramie. The Laramie river goes through the ridge, although the ground could be rough. There are no paved roads currently on this route.A westward connection from Denver would have needed to build through Laramie along the present mainline route or north through Cheyenne on the current BNSF ( C&S) route.

[StillGrande]

Another set of reasons for the chosen route at the time was access to suitable water, trees suitable for ties and building materials (they paid particular attention to the rivers and streams near the route which could support logging activities as well as water for the trains and building crews), access to possible coal and mineral reserves (There was a mineral surveyor with the route surveyors), limits on bridging and filling activites, and as noted before, hostile indians, severity of winter weather and snow fall patterns (one group of surveyors was sent to monitor the amount of snow in an alternate path, another was charged with monitoring how the snow fell and was blown around to pick which side of a pass or canyon the route should take to remain open year round with less effort. Remember, the route had to be available year round. The northern route mentioned was looked at, but there was discussion that there would be greater snowfalls to be dealt with at that point. Some of the other routes were not as available year round given the technology at the time. There was also concern about the suitability of the ground to support a railroad. There was some discussion about whether the ground could hold the line without extensive upgrades.

As has been brought up, the UP at the time was getting paid for laying track which could run a train (not necessarily the most efficient route available, but the cheapest which could pass inspection). 40 fewer miles is less money to the investors in land speculation.

The US method of building a route between two points is not always the shortest route. Consideration is made for grade changes and available resources (UK method, because points were usually closer together, was to build in a straight line and to heck with the costs) . In the west at the time they were also nation building and were selecting sites which could become future towns and supply the route with traffic when it was finished. You can't build a road with no customers. And you can't build a town with no income source for the residents.

[nanaimo73]

Thank you, stillgrande. It's great to be talking about railroads on this forum instead of Wednesday's main topic.

[jockellis]

G'day, Y'all,
It always seems in retrospect that something should have been done differently that the initial attempt. Personally, I think the civil engineers were a pretty focused bunch if they could foresee the possibilities of Sherman Hill while trying to get away from the local neighborhood association hotheads who didn't want to see property values depressed. The UP isn't alone in re-doing track. It has been done many times in the East, too.
Jock Ellis
Cumming, GA US of A

[miniwyo]

I think Stillgrande hit it right on the nose. The picked that route becasue of better coal deposits along the route. At one point in time there were like 6 or 8 coal mines operating in Rock Springs alone. And if the route have gone north and come in down through Granger, then they would have missed the coal deposits. Also, I have been in the South Pass area in early October (hunting season) and it has been know to snow 1-3 feet in an hour, it would have probably been more expensive to build in that weather as well as to constantly clear the tracks. The terrain is very rugged as well, dense forests in the surrounding mountians, most likley causing for some steep grades.

[StillGrande]

The first goal was to finish it. The second make some money. Efficiency could come later. Sherman Hill, even unshortened, was a great find through the granite wall in front of the surveyors. It provided a grade at a modest 1.7% (up to 4.5% was considered doable at the time, though a stuggle for any income).

[nanaimo73]

miniwyo-The route I am talking about is not the lousy South Pass route.I say they should have built the 1909 proposed line first."My line" would have still served all of the mines and the towns of Medicine Bow, Hanna, Rawlins, Rock Springs and Green River
and still crossed the Continental Divide at Creston, 7,107'.The highest point on the Transcontinental line would have then been at Aspen tunnel to your west.

[miniwyo]

OH, alright I must have misread the whole thread then, My bad.

[Anonymous]

You can get most of your answers from Stephen E. Ambrose's "Nothing Like It in the World". Regarding the surveys west of Nebraska, he has this to say regarding the Laramie River route:

"To go north on the North Platte to the Laramie River was also impossible. Evans 'pushed through, taking three weeks to run 25 miles - a narrow, wild, precipitous gorge, and never before passed by man,' according to Dodge. It was therefore 'impracticable.' " (p 188)

Whether that same conclusion held a few years later when UP might have been exploring re-routings I do not know. There may have been operating costs in trying to run a railroad through a narrow convaluted canyon that far exceeded the operating costs associated with mere grades. As was analyzed in another thread, grades are but one variable associated with total operating costs.

It is interesting that the same historical perspective used in analyzing UP's original route is also applicable to the NP, GN, et al. It seems that the GN was the most prevalent in rerouting it's original line. Frankly, I think UP did okay on most of its ROW's except for it's crossing of the Blue Mountains in Oregon. That Blue Mountain crossing is one that still begs for a major rerouting.

But Sherman Pass with it's 1.4%(?) ruling grade, that's not too shabby.

[Anonymous]

it's been awhile, but if my memory is intact.....

the railroad act of 1863 gave the union pacific/central pacific something like $40,000 per mile for track laid in the mountains (whether they were real mountains or not), and ownership of alternate square miles going out 20 miles each way from the track, and also the mineral rights on that land.

originally the union pacific planned to head for south pass, but the extensive coal deposits on the original route through wyoming and utah proved to be too big a prize to ignore. they needed that coal, and if they did not lay claim to it first then the central pacific was going to get it, and they wanted it badly. so that's why they picked that route.

at $40,000. per mile, the union pacific would have zig zagged that railline all the way if they thought they could have gotten away with it. the big money was in the building of the railroad, and not much interest beyond that. the resulting scandal reached deep into congress because all the important and influential owned a piece of the union pacific. construction profits were enormous.

the central pacific did something similar, but kept it restricted to "the big four", and when called to account, all their business records caught fire. they got away clean.

while dealing with that war, abe lincoln was also attempting to build a nation. while he knew the transcontinental railroad would be subject to a bit of corruption, he figured it needed to happen now, and he was willing to accept this if it would cause the road to be built. getting things done is what made him great.

-rr

[kenneo]

As was mentioned above, there are two very good and recent books on the Union Pacific and Central Pacific buildinbg projects. Mr. Ambros' book gives an indepth look at the politics that were going on wihin the UP. I suggest that you read both of them ("Union Pacific" and "Nothing Like It in the World") and your questions will be answered.

In short, there is no better crossing between Laramie and Cheyanne. The Laramie River route is flatter, but operating and constructions costs would have eaten them alive. And being shorter, would have resulted in lower payments from the government. So, you get a slightly longer route, a "flat" mountain crossing and a straight mountain railroad. The only problem with Sherman is the first 2 or so miles on the West side at the top.

The blunders would have been the Laramie River route and the South Pass route.

And about the Blue's crossing. That was not a UP doing. That was a Villard and Company doing to keep from being short hauled by the NP (I do not remember if Villard was still involved with the ORN -(which became the O-WRN), but it was the group that worked with him that built the railroad all the way from Portland, first to Pasco to complete the NP main line, and then from Umatilla to Hinkle to connect with the Oregon Short Line (Granger to Hinlke) - which was a UP project. The UP did assist in financing the OSL extension and later used that series of loans to bankrupt the "O-Dub" and then take it over.

I don't know if there is a better crossing of the Blues than Immigrant Pass, but that is one difficult piece of railroad to operate -- all the way from Pendleton to Hinkle. There is no other practical route then the one they now have if you wi***o connect the cities in North Eastern Oregon

[PNWRMNM]

Keeno,

Tiny correction: the junction of NP and OR&N was at Wallula, not Pasco. Waybills for cars routed UP to BNSF there today still show Villard Jct.

Mac