I remember reading somewhere that Union Pacific has put the 6936 into revenue freight before. Does anyone know if this is true or has actually seen this?
yes UP has used the #6936 in freight service. During a severe power crunch in the late 90's UP fitted the #6936 with ditch lights and placed it in freight service for a short time. I have a friend who was on a railfan trip out west and was lucky enough to catch the #6936 leading a freight over Archer Hill. Do some searching on the internet and you can likely find a few photos of the unit pulling freight.
Also during the same period as the #6936 being pressed into freight service the A-B-A set of E9's were placed into freight service as well. They were used for a very brief period on some very light intermodal trains. They were not suited to freight service because of their high speed gearing and apparently atleast 1 of the units had its traction motors damaged after handling a train which was relaly too heavy for the units.
Bryan Jones
What's even more unusual is seeing UP 4-8-8-4 #3985 on a freight or a double stack! I know of at least two instances of that happening, so there were probably others.
Anderphoto
Must have been really wierd to see! Vintage Passenger loco's on a pig train.
FranklinC55Must have been really wierd to see! Vintage Passenger loco's on a pig train.
Man, that's one hell of a catch! Where did you see that?
Anderphoto What's even more unusual is seeing UP 4-8-8-4 #3985 on a freight or a double stack! I know of at least two instances of that happening, so there were probably others.
The Union Pacific #3985 is a 4-6-6-4 Challenger type, not a 4-8-8-4 Big Boy Type. I don't recall what year it was, but some years ago American Presidents Line (APL) specifically requested that Union Pacific assign one of their Steam Locomotives to a stack train, for publicity purposes. The #3985 got the assignment. If a present era modeler had an itch to run a Challenger, they could run a solid stack train of APL containers, and have a prototypical (even if only a one time occurance) train.
UP has also used both the 844 and 3985 in freight service to break them in after major service. I have also read that UP will occasionally use either Steam locomotive in revenue freight service just to for the surprize factor, without announcing that they will be out on the loose. It is not very often, but they can show up in unexpected places, at unexpected times.
I am Very Happy, that UP decided to keep any Steam at all in operable condition, and donate many to Cities and Museums for display, rather than follow the New York Central's example, where very few Steam Locomotives escaped the scrapper's torch(boderline crime against society, not even 1 of those Famous Hudson's survived). I have no doubt that the UP Steam Program is an Immense expense, so BIG THANK YOU to UNION PACIFIC, from Me.
Doug
May your flanges always stay BETWEEN the rails
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhgHrDbN4EU
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.