Union Pacific Passenger Cars
Index For This Page
This page was last updated on April 5, 2013.
(Click here for updates.)
Heritage Fleet
Heritage Fleet and Business Car Roster — A roster listing of Union Pacific's steel passenger cars after 1971, including the excursion fleet used with the steam locomotives and other special operations, and other cars operated after the startup of Amtrak in May 1971.
- Includes a roster listing of Union Pacific's steel business and executive cars, including cars owned by subsidiary roads OSL, OWRR&N and LA&SL, and former C&NW, MKT, MP, and SP cars.
Heritage Fleet Water Cars — A roster listing of the former steam locomotive tenders that UP now uses with its current steam locomotives.
Wooden Cars
Wooden Cars — An index page for several roster listings of Union Pacific's wooden passenger cars, along with the wooden passenger cars of its predecessor and subsidiary companies. (This information is currently being researched and developed, and is presented here as a work in progress.)
Early Streamliners
Streamliner Train Sets — A listing of the Union Pacific Streamliner train sets, 1st Train through 10th Train, plus Train of Tomorrow and Aerotrain.
Named Early Streamliner Cars — A roster listing of all named Streamliner cars, from UP's early Streamliner and City trains of the 1930s and early 1940s.
Numbered Early Streamliner Cars — A roster listing of all numbered Streamliner cars, from UP's early Streamliner and City trains of the 1930s and early 1940s. These were the cars with CD, CP, LA, and SF prefixes, and those with the original five-digit numbers.
Streamliner Timeline — A chronology of events concerning UP's Streamliner trains, 1934 to 1971.
Named and Numbered Cars
Named Heavyweight Cars — A roster listing of all named heavyweight clerestory-roofed cars, including named Pullman sleeper cars assigned to UP.
Standard Heavyweight Cars — A summary listing of the clerestory heavyweight cars on UP that were not sleepers, including Dining, Coach, Chair and Observation cars.
Named and Numbered Non-UP Lightweight Cars — A roster of non-Union Pacific cars painted yellow and gray for service within UP trains.
Named Lightweight Sleeper Cars — A roster listings of UP's named lightweight sleeper cars, from the earliest "American" series Pullman sleeper cars from 1942 for the non-Streamliner trains, through to the newest "Star" series sleepers from 1956.
Named Lightweight Lounge Cars — A roster listing of UP's "River" series of lightweight Club Lounge cars.
Numbered Cars
An index listing of all numbered steel (non-Streamliner) passenger cars, including all of the Harriman-style arch-roofed cars (1909-1927), all heavyweight clerestory-roofed cars (1926-1935), and all lightweight cars (1937-1964).
The following index should be used by locating the car number within the number range in the two left columns, then clicking on the file name in the far right column. (Incomplete number group list)
| Starting Group |
Ending Group |
File |
| OSL Diner 218 | OWRR&N Coach Observation 1008 | numbered-1 |
| Chair 1050 | OWRR&N Postal Storage 1496 | numbered-2 |
| Cafe Observation 1500 | Horse Baggage Automobile 1798 | numbered-3 |
| OSL Baggage 1826 | Cafe Lounge 2497 | numbered-4 |
| Postal Coach 2510 | OWRR&N Diner 4068 | numbered-5 |
| LA&SL Chair 4140 | Coach 5556 | numbered-6 |
| Baggage 5601 | SP Coffee Shop Lounge 10206 | numbered-7 |
Express Box Cars — Roster information for UP's 9100, 9200, and 9300 series Express Box cars; includes listings of the same cars as 24100, 24200, and 24300 series from the 1960s, along with the short lived 24400 series retired Baggage cars.
Before UP
GM Train of Tomorrow — A separate page for the General Motors "Train of Tomorrow" all-dome passenger train, built in 1947 and purchased by UP in 1950.
After UP
UP Cars to Amtrak — Roster information about the UP passenger cars that were sold to Amtrak in 1971 and later years.
UP Cars to Mexico — Information about the UP passenger cars that were sold to Mexico
UP Cars to Ringling Bros. — Information about the 104 former UP passenger cars that were sold to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus (RBX and RBBX)
Steel Cars, Before 1915
Harriman Common Standard Cars — A listing of Common Standard cars, sorted by car numbers.
Harriman Common Standard Cars — A listing of Common Standard cars, sorted by build dates (includes known builder lot and plan numbers).
UP Numbered Cars Before 1915 — A roster listing of all UP steel passenger cars prior to the 1915-1916 general renumbering.
OSL Numbered Cars Before 1915 — A roster listing of all Oregon Short Line steel passenger cars prior to the 1915-1916 general renumbering.
OWRR&N Numbered Cars Before 1915 — A roster listing of all Oregon-Washington Railway & Navigation steel passenger cars prior to the 1915-1916 general renumbering.
SPLA&SL (LA&SL) Numbered Cars before 1921 — A roster listing of all San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake (Los Angeles & Salt Lake after 1916) steel passenger cars prior to formal integration into UP's numbering system in 1921.
Maintenance of Way and Company Service Cars
Maintenance of Way Cars — A roster listing of Union Pacific's maintenance of way cars in the road's 900000 series car numbers, that were converted from retired steel passenger cars.
Company Service Cars — A roster listing of Union Pacific's company service cars, including Boiler cars (B-1 and B-2), Rail Detector cars (DC-2 to DC-9), Track Evaluation Cars (EC-1 to EC-3), Track Inspection Vehicles (EC-4 and EC-5), along with the older Air Brake Instruction cars and Rules Examiner cars converted from retired steel passenger cars.
Pullman Information
History of Pullman — A history of the Pullman company that operated the nationwide network of railroad sleeper car services.
Pullman Operations on UP — Notes about Pullman sleeping car operations on Union Pacific.
"The World's Greatest Hotel" — An article about the history of Pullman by Arthur D. Durbin, published in the November 1969 issue of Trains magazine.
Other Information
Coach vs. Chair — Information about the differences between Coaches and Chair Cars.
Painting and Lettering — Information about Union Pacific's Painting, Lettering and Numbering (PL&N) on its fleet of passenger cars.
Miscellaneous Notes — Notes about various subjects that don't belong in other pages.
Union Pacific "City" Trains — Information about the "City" named Streamliners
Q&A — Questions and answers about Union Pacific's passenger car fleet, including excerpts from the Q&A column in The Streamliner. (The Streamliner is the quarterly publication of the Union Pacific Historical Society.)
Train Consists — An index of passenger train consists. (Incomplete, under construction)
Dynamos and Head End Power —A brief history of head-end electrical power as it was used in the 1909-1921 era by the installation of steam-driven dynamos in baggage cars. (click here for more information about Amtrak's use of head end power, HEP)
Modeling Information — Suggestions for modeling Union Pacific passenger trains and cars. (Incomplete, under construction)
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements — Acknowledgements for all the people who have helped me compile this information about UP's passenger cars.
Sources
Further Reading — Additional reading about UP's passenger cars.
Source Material — A listing of the source material used to compile this information about UP's passenger cars.
Glossary
Glossary — A glossary of terms and phrases used in these roster listings and descriptive narratives.
More Information
- Union Pacific Passenger Trains — A summary of UP passenger trains, and their operation through Ogden, Utah
- Streamliner Timeline — A timeline of events concerning Union Pacific's passenger trains (under construction)
- Photos — A separate index page for links to photographs of Union Pacific passenger cars.
- Amtrak — A separate index page for Amtrak information.
- Streamliner Memories — A blog about streamliners, using advertising to tell the story.
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