Union Pacific Steam Locomotive Painting and Lettering
This page was last updated on March 18, 2008.
Before 1937
With its adoption of less-colorful paint schemes in the 1870s, Union Pacific, like so many of the nation's other railroads, began using black paint with white (or light gray) lettering on its steam locomotives.
This era is remembered by the large locomotive numbers that were placed on the locomotive tenders, and continued through to the mid 1930s. The largest numbers were used throughout the road's financial problems of the mid 1890s, with smaller numbers being applied during the Common Standard era brought on by E. H. Harriman.
During 1936, Union Pacific's mechanical designers began work on a new passenger locomotive that used the 4-8-4 wheel type. UP celebrated the delivery of UP 800, the first FEF-1 in August 1937 with a new image for its steam locomotives, thus changing a lettering scheme that had been used since the late 1870s, sixty years before.
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