Folklore for Rail Roadies: UP No 844

Subject: Folklore for Rail Roadies: UP No 844
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 May 06 - 07:37 PM

From the Wichita (Kansas) Eagle, 02 May 2006

Old No. 844 chugs through Kansas this week
The last steam locomotive ever built for Union Pacific Railroad will be in Herington from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. today at the Eighth Street crossing.
Union Pacific Railroad's steam locomotive No. 844 was delivered to Union Pacific in 1944. It pulled trains such as the Overland Limited and the Los Angeles limited.
In 1960, it was saved from being scrapped and was refurbished for special service. The locomotive is currently on the South Central States Heritage Express Tour, which began April 27 in Cheyenne, Wyo.
On Wednesday, the train leaves Herington for Pratt before leaving Kansas on Thursday for Guymon, Okla.
A global positioning satellite has been installed on one of the railcars traveling with No. 844. A map on the Union Pacific Web site, www.up.com, shows visitors the train's route and is updated every five minutes. Click "media," then "news releases." Follow the link that begins "Union Pacific's Historic Steam Locomotive No. 844," then click "Follow UP 844 with GPS" in right-hand rail.
— Beccy Tanner

The link given for the "GPS" map didn't seem too interesting to me, but there are several options on the preceding page:

Heritage Tour

The "download pdf" contains a reasonably decent pic of No 844.

Brief historical notes at No 844 Fact Sheet

On the way to the link I noted:

Union Pacific History and Photos looks like it may have links to several items of interest to RR buffs.

Possibly old news to real fans of old RRs, but a pleasant reminder to me that some old chuffers are still around.

John

Subject: RE: Folklore for Rail Roadies: UP No 844
From: GUEST,Joe Offer, at the violin teacher's house
Date: 02 May 06 - 08:10 PM

My favorite operating locomotive is the UP Challenger a 4-6-6-4 that's almost as big as the "Big Boy" locomotives. I saw this locomotive coming at me with a huge plume of black smoke coming from the stack. It looked like a tornado.
We live on the route of the Transcontinental Railroad, and these steamers occasionally pass our house. I've never been alert enough to see one, however. I usually read the newspaper about three days late.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Folklore for Rail Roadies: UP No 844
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 May 06 - 08:50 PM

Joe O -

Or your newspapers may be like mine. They report events only on the day they happen, which is usally too late to change plans to get there.

As a kid, we lived almost on the tracks, 6 houses down, and I crossed them every day on the way to school, but it was a local/spur line, with most of the traffic headed in and out of the Santa Fe maintenance shops. Traffic was irregular, but steam drivers were probably much more common than diesels through the mid 1950s, with about an even mix up to near the end of the 50s. I have no idea what models any of them were, since they usually scheduled them for peak traffic times (to maximize the traffic blockage - according to my adult relatives) and I was usually in school when they went by.

John

Subject: RE: Folklore for Rail Roadies: UP No 844
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 02 May 06 - 11:00 PM

Quick, boys, give it some music or "-lore" content! ;-)

Subject: RE: Folklore for Rail Roadies: UP No 844
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 May 06 - 03:43 AM

Hey, Becky, railroads are folklore - but I think I'll move this to the non-music section, nonetheless.

I feel I have a unique privilege, being able to look out the window and see the westbound tracks of this engineering marvel of the 1860's (the eastbound tracks are in a tunnel). I have to say, though, that this area and its railroad and its mines did not generate as many traditional songs and one might think it should. Most of the songs about this area were of commercial origin - John A. Stone (Old Put) was the most prolific producer of Gold Rush songs.

This area's most significant locomotive was the Southern Pacific Cab Forward design. Because of the many tunnels and snow sheds on this Donner Pass route, they wanted the crew at the front of the locomotive and the smokestack at the back, so the crew would be ahead of the smoke. The last Cab-forwards were built in the 1940's, so they're in the same era as the Union Pacific Big Boys and Challengers and the UP 844. Now the UP owns the railroad, and the Southern Pacific is no more.

There are no operating Big Boys or Cab Forwards. Click here for a great photo of a Cab-Forward at the roundhouse at Roseville, California - not far from my home. Click here for another. Location is not identified, but most probably it's in my area, too. The Southern Pacific Daylight, No. 4449, is one steam locomotive we still see operating in these parts.

-Joe Offer, Colfax, California-

Subject: RE: Folklore for Rail Roadies: UP No 844
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 03 May 06 - 05:44 AM

Joe -

I debated putting it in BS to begin with, but it seemed like a couple of our most avid choo-choo types spend more time up above. They had their chance to spot it, so down below is fine.

John

Subject: RE: Folklore for Rail Roadies: UP No 844
From: Bill D
Date: 03 May 06 - 02:33 PM

In the mid 1950s, my grandmother lived in Emporia, KS..2nd house from the tracks (206 Rural)....I used to stand in her front yard and watch steam locomotives and make lists of names on rail cars. Had no need for the BIG ones there in flat Kansas, but they were big enough for a 12-14 year old.

Then, about 1975, some commerative train came thru Wichita...(freedom train? funeral train?) and did some switching right beside where I was working in the Yard Store on E.Central..BIG steam locomotive, and I watched it for 15-20 minutes.

Subject: RE: Folklore for Rail Roadies: UP No 844
From: Padre
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 09:35 PM

Used to see C&O 2-6-6-6 locos (C&O called them Allegheny) hauling coal trains between Hinton and Clifton Forge.

Padre

Subject: RE: Folklore for Rail Roadies: UP No 844
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Dec 06 - 09:54 PM

Well, as long as this thread was refreshed with a rather mindless message (which we deleted), let me suggest three railroad books that would make very good Christmas presents:

• Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folksong (2d ed.), by Norm Cohen - the ultimate book of railroad songs
  
• Treasury of Railroad Folklore by B.A. Botkin - out of print, but readily available used
  
• Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869 by Stephen E. Ambrose - panned by some critics, but it does a good job of telling the story of the building of the transcontinental railroad, the tracks that run right past my house.

And in searching for thes books, I see that Arcadia Publishing has a new Images of Rail series. Arcadia has published countless books of high-quality historic photographs, charting the history of the neighborhoods of America - I can't see how they can make money publixhing such limited-market books, but they must be doing something right.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Folklore for Rail Roadies: UP No 844
From: Hrothgar
Date: 23 Dec 06 - 05:30 AM

I have the first two of those. Cohen's book is magnificent.

Subject: RE: Folklore for Rail Roadies: UP No 844
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 12:29 AM

"but a pleasant reminder to me that some old chuffers are still around"

Like you and me John.... :-)

Subject: RE: Folklore for Rail Roadies: UP No 844
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 02:06 PM

Anyone know where the little "parade engines" of the UP ended up? The ones they'd run in local parades, not ones that ran on the rails.

Subject: RE: Folklore for Rail Roadies: UP No 844
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 05:41 PM

On the rails running folks to Chyenne Wyoming's "Frontier Days" an opperating 844 makes a run every summer, Challenger (the largest opperating engine) tags along.

Gives me the goosebumps and makes me choke up to see them - ererie feeling of tremendous thundering power - they are beautiful.

GREELEY TRIBUNE - KIDS COMMENTS
http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20050722/NEWS/107220054&SearchID=73266953218281

UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD
http://www.uprr.com/newsinfo/releases/heritage_and_steam/2005/0718_steam_schedule.shtml

PHOTOS - 844
http://www.trainweb.org/rradventures/RRAdventures_Colorado/9999-Cheyenne_Frontier_Days.htm

DENVER POST - Trains To Run Between Pueblo and Denver Summer 2007
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_4663908

DENVER POST
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_4079579

CHYENNE - Trainspotting "Big Boy" and 844
http://www.wyomingtourism.org/cms/d/trainspotting.php

CHALLENGER - UP3985 GREAT PHOTOS
(What a shame if Kyoto Accords sidetracks these trains)
http://www.trainweb.org/brettrw/steam/steam.html

For over 60 years our family received the large Union Pacific Calendar at this time of year. Tightly rolled in a tube - they were more exciting than a new comic book to open - and lasted longer.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Look Kid - if you need a BLUE CLICKY you shouldn't be riding the rails of the information superhighway.

Subject: RE: Folklore for Rail Roadies: UP No 844
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 06:34 PM

To redeem this thread from the lower regions of Mudcat - a couple additions to keep things copasetic for the tie-splitting, line-straddlers..

The Hell Bound Train, Life's Railway to Heaven Long Steel Rail, Cohen, Norm, 1981 pp640-642

EXCERPTS:

A variant obtained by Odum from J.D. Arthur in 1929 is unusual. It has "an incipit and a chorus, as follows:
Come all you good people if you want to hear,
The story of a bad engineer,
Who ran a train on the downward road,
And every car held a heavy load.
The agent stood at the station door,
He welcomed the rich, he grabbed at the poor,
And everybody seemed jolly and gay,
As the hell-bound train sped on its way.

Come, my friend, give you heart to Jesus,
Come, my friend, join out [sic] happy band:
Come today and follow the Savior,
He will lead you safely to the promised land.

[Odum-Arthur MS 30, July 10, 1929]

The manuscript bears instruction ' to be sung to the tune of "Casey Jones," ' as might be inferred by scansion of the poem.

A considerably older poem on the same theme - that of a train that hauls drunkards to hell - was titled "Ride on the Black Valley Railroad" and credited to I.N. Tarbox in One Hundred Choice Selections No. 11 (1876) Here are some of the verses comparable to line in "The Hell-Bound Train":

A full supply of bad whiskey,
Four our engine is taken here;
And a queer looking fellow from Hades,
Steps on for our engineer.

Our engineer chuckles and dances,
In the wild lurid flashes he throws;
Hotter blaze the red fires of his furnace
As on in the blackness he goes.

Oh, the sound that we hear in the darkness,
The laughter and crying and groans;
The ravings of anger and madness,
The sobbings and pitiful moans.

[Also in Railroad and Current Mechanic 22 (Dec. 1913), 67.]

Poems such as this and the later "Hell-Bound Train," were special forms of more general theme often exploited in nineteenth-century compositions - the drunkard's dream, in which a confirmed alcoholic falls into a stupor and foresees the plight of his widow and orphaned children ten years hence, after he has been laid in the grave by Demon Rum.

Sincerest MERRY CHRISTMAS to ALL,
Gargoyle