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Union Pacific Passenger Cars And Trains

This page was last updated on November 18, 2024.

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.

Olympic Torch Relay Trains -- Information about the trains, and the Olympic cauldron car, that UP used to support the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, and the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Includes the train consists, and the schedule the trains followed during the torch relay.

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. Includes links to wooden Pullman sleeping and dining cars assigned to Union Pacific, wooden UP company service cars, and wooden car builders.

Early UP Passenger Trains, 1869-1870 -- Text taken from compiled typewritten notes in the Union Pacific Historical Collection at the Union Pacific Museum in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Arch Roof Heavyweight Steel Cars, Before 1915

The Union Pacific, and its auxiliary roads owned 800 arch-roof passenger cars, and received the first arch-roof heavyweight steel cars in 1909, following the prototype in 1907. The first cars were built to the Harriman-era Common Standard. After 1918, the cars were built to UP's adapted variation on the Common Standard designs. Clerestory-roof cars began arriving in 1920.

All Union Pacific System (UP, OSL, OWRR&N) equipment was renumbered in 1915-1916 to match a system-wide renumbering plan.

Harriman Common Standard Arch Roof Cars, Car Numbers -- A listing of Common Standard cars, sorted by car numbers.

Harriman Common Standard Arch Roof Cars, Dates Built -- 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.

Named and Numbered Clerestory-Roof Heavyweight Cars

UP owned and operated clerestory-roof heavyweight cars from 1920 to 1963.

Named Clerestory-Roof Heavyweight Cars -- A roster listing of all named clerestory-roof heavyweight cars on UP, including named Pullman sleeper cars assigned to UP.

Numbered Clerestory-Roof Heavyweight Cars -- A summary listing of the clerestory-roof heavyweight cars on UP that were not sleepers, including Dining, Coach, Chair and Observation cars.

Clerestory-Roof Heavyweight Cars, By Date Built -- A summary listing of clerestory-roof heavyweight cars on UP and its subsidiaries, sorted by date built.

Modernized Heavyweight Cars -- Information about the modernized heavyweight cars completed in 1948-1954, using streamlined roofs and sealed windows.

OWRR&N did not receive any clerestory-roof cars, or for that matter, any passenger cars after the three arch-roof 69' Baggage cars from AC&F in 1926.

Prior to its Streamliners in 1934-1937, the last passenger cars that UP bought, either arch-roof or clerestory-roof, were 10 clerestory-roof Chair cars from Pullman in 1931, and 11 arch-roof 69' Baggage cars from Pressed Steel, also in 1931.

Early Streamliners

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; a total of 85 cars.

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 10000-series numbers.

Streamliner Timeline -- A chronology of events concerning UP's Streamliner trains, 1934 to 1971.

Numbered Streamliner Train Sets -- A listing of the Union Pacific Streamliner train sets, 1st Train through 10th Train, plus Train of Tomorrow and Aerotrain.

The "City" Trains -- Information about the "City" named Streamliners, including the changes to each train's consist over time.

1941 Sleepers -- A roster listing of all 19 identical sleepers built for the City trains in 1941.

City of Los Angeles 1947 -- A summary of the lettering changes on the City of Los Angeles in 1947, compiled by Jeff Koeller.

Sioux Chief Traintel -- Former UP-C&NW jointly owned cars that became C&NW cars, and in turn became part of a unique railroad theme motel.

Streamliner Locomotives -- Rosters listings of just the locomotive power sets used on the early Streamliners.

Other Early Streamliner Sources

Early UP Streamliners -- Excerpts from "The Official Pullman-Standard Library," Volume 13 and Volume 14, by W. David Randall and William G. Anderson, published in 1993.

Early Pullman Streamliner Cars -- Excerpts from W. David Randall's "Streamliner Cars, Volume 1, Pullman-Standard," published in 1981.

Early UP Streamliners -- Excerpts from the Overland Route section of Robert Wayner's "Car Names, Numbers and Consists," published in 1972.

Other Trains

These trains used a mix of modified and unmodified heavyweight cars, and lightweight cars.

The Forty-Niner -- A special Union Pacific train operated by Union Pacific, Southern Pacific and Chicago & North Western, between Chicago and San Francisco, from 1937 to 1941. The train used a combination of modified heavyweight cars and new lightweight cars.

Treasure Island Special -- A special Union Pacific train operated by Union Pacific, Southern Pacific and Chicago & North Western, between Chicago and San Francisco, from 1939 to 1940. The train used a combination of modified heavyweight cars and new lightweight cars.

The Challenger -- Information about "The Challenger" series of passenger trains operated by Union Pacific and its partners.

Pony Express -- Information about Union Pacific's Pony Express passenger train.

Portland Rose -- Information about Union Pacific's Portland Rose passenger train.

Other Trains -- Information about many of Union Pacific's named but non-Streamliner passenger trains. (under construction)

Train Consists -- An index of passenger train consists. (Incomplete, under construction)

UP Passenger Trains, 1946-1959 -- An incomplete list of Union Pacific passenger trains in the post-war period, taken from a very small sampling of public timetables.

Named and Numbered Lightweight Cars

"Between 1946 and 1965, UP purchased new equipment including 291 sleeping cars, 196 coaches, and 112 diners and lounges, 16 dome coaches, 16 dome lounge cars, and 11 dome diners (unique to UP)." (Union Pacific web page, "A Brief History of Union Pacific Passenger Trains", accessed on October 12, 1996)

Named Lightweight Sleeper Cars -- 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.

Lightweight Cars -- An overview of UP's lightweight passenger cars. (under construction)

Lightweight Cars, Sorted by Car Number -- An index listing of UP's numbered lightweight cars, delivered 1937 through 1964.

Lightweight Cars, Sorted by Year -- An index listing of UP lightweight cars, sorted by year built, 1937-1964.

Non-UP Named and Numbered Lightweight Cars -- A roster listing of non-Union Pacific cars painted yellow and gray for service within UP trains.

Numbered Cars, After 1915

An index listing of all numbered steel (non-Streamliner) passenger cars, after 1915 system renumbering, including:

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	Parlor 997	numbered-1
OWRR&N Coach Observation 1000	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	Dome 9015	numbered-7

Before UP

GM Train of Tomorrow -- Information about the General Motors "Train of Tomorrow" all-dome passenger train, built in 1947 and purchased by UP in 1950.

After UP

With the start of Amtrak in May 1971, Union Pacific disposed of its excess passenger cars as follows. Amtrak selected 120 cars; Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus took 30 cars; Alaska Railroad took 30 cars; Auto-Train Corp. took 33 dome cars; and 65 UP passenger cars were to be converted to tool, material, and dining cars for the railroad's maintenance of way department. (Railroad magazine, November 1972, page 32)

After UP Notes -- Information about the companies that purchased Union Pacific passenger cars after the cars were retired by UP.

UP Cars to Alaska Railroad -- Information about the 30 former UP cars that were sold to Alaska Railroad in 1971-1972.

UP Cars to Amtrak -- Roster information about the 163 former UP passenger cars that were sold to Amtrak in 1971 and later years.

UP Cars to American Orient Express -- Information about the 18 former UP cars that were sold to American Orient Express (AOEX), and its predecessors and successors; some came from Amtrak.

UP Cars to Mexico -- Information about the 25 former UP passenger cars that were sold to Mexico, including comments about the big sale in 1986 and delivery in 1987.

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) in 1971 and later years.

Express Box Cars

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.

Roadway and Company Service Cars

Roadway Cars -- A roster listing of Union Pacific's Roadway (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.

UPP Company Service Cars -- Non-passenger equipment with UPP reporting marks; UPP 400-403

Painting and Lettering

Painting and Lettering -- Information about Union Pacific's Painting, Lettering and Numbering (PL&N) on its fleet of passenger cars.

Passenger Service Timeline

UP Passenger Service Timeline -- A general timeline of Union Pacific passenger service, 1869-1971, including passenger cars and passenger trains.

Pullman Cars On UP

David Seidel wrote on September 13, 2004.

Pullman Information

Union Pacific Sleepers -- An article about how many sleeping cars Union Pacific either owned or operated.

Pullman Operations on UP -- Notes about Pullman sleeping car operations on Union Pacific.

History of Pullman -- A history of the Pullman company that operated the nationwide network of railroad sleeper car services.

"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.

Pullman Green -- Comments about how Pullman's original brown (similar, or identical, to today's UPS brown), became the later green color most observers call "Pullman Green."

Pullman Cars on UP in the 1930s -- A listing of Pullman cars on UP, C&NW and SP in the 1930s. Compiled by John Carroll as a spreadsheet. A similar list was published in The Streamliner, Volume 15, Number 2, Spring 2001.

Pullman Troop Sleepers -- Information about the World War II-era troop sleepers and troop kitchen cars, built in 1943 to 1946 by Pullman and AC&F.

Pullman Postscript -- An article scanned from the November 1969 issue of Trains magazine.

The Pullman Project -- Tom Madden's excellent source for Pullman car information; this web site focuses solely on Pullman's sleeper cars.

Pullman Timeline -- Timeline of Pullman events, reformatted from original compiled by Frank H. Beberdick for the Pullman Virtual Museum, a web site that is now defunct and obsolete (mirrored at UtahRails without permission).

Roster Updates

Updates for Union Pacific passenger cars and trains -- A chronological list of the updates to this information about UP passenger cars and passenger trains, beginning in 2004.

Other Information

C&NW Power Moves, 1953 -- Text from an internal UP letter giving instructions for the movement of C&NW power to points east of Omaha.

Coach vs. Chair -- Information about the differences between Coaches and Chair Cars.

Combination Cars -- Listings of Union Pacific's combination passenger cars, taken from Clive Carter's article in The Streamliner.

Description of Passenger Equipment, No. 1, November 1, 1910 -- A PDF of a book listing all Union Pacific passenger cars in 1910. (PDF; 12 pages; 4.1MB) (courtesy of James Ehernberger)

Description of Passenger Equipment, No. 7, January 1, 1926 -- A PDF of a book listing all Union Pacific passenger cars in 1926. (PDF; 66 pages; 25.4MB) (courtesy of James Ehernberger)

Diagrams -- Information about Union Pacific's passenger car folio diagrams.

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.

First Dome Cars -- Information about the first two dome cars on UP, numbered as UP 9000 and 9001, delivered in February 1955.

Miscellaneous Notes -- Notes about various subjects that don't belong in other pages.

Named and Numbered -- Brief comments about the named and numbered passenger cars used by Union Pacific.

ORER Source Data -- Information about data taken from The Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER).

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.)

Trucks -- Information about the trucks (wheelsets) used on Union Pacific passenger cars.

Union Pacific Passenger Trains Through Ogden -- A summary of UP passenger trains, and their operation through Ogden, Utah.

UP 107 Overland at Meadowcroft -- The story of how a Union Pacific business car came to a small museum in Western Pennsylvania.

UP Before Amtrak, 1971 -- Information about the trains Union Pacific was operating during early 1971, before Amtrak started on May 1, 1971.

UP Commissary Supply Cars -- Information about UP's Commissary supply cars, taken from The Mixed Train, Issue 2022-4.

UP Form 70 -- Information about UP's Form 70, "List of Agencies, Stations, Equipment, Etc." -- Descriptive listings of all agencies, stations, locomotives and locomotive service facilities, and passenger and freight equipment, along with listings of officials, managers, physicians, hospitals and time inspectors.

Robert West Files

Four files compiled by Robert West, and presented in his now-defunct web site. Presented here with Mr. West's permission. (Although the data itself is unchanged, the formatting has been upgraded to modern, and minimal, web page standards.) (The three files covering UP passenger locomotives are not presented here; see Locomotives section below)

Union Pacific Streamliner Timeline

Union Pacific Train Numbers

Union Pacific Streamliner Assignments & Consists

Union Pacific Streamliner Passenger Cars

Locomotives

UP Streamliner Locomotives, 1934-1953 -- Union Pacific's passenger locomotive fleet during the early Streamliner era.

UP Passenger Locomotives, 900-series -- The 900 series was used by Union Pacific for its passenger locomotives beginning in 1946.

Photos

UPP passenger cars at RR Pictures Archive

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments -- Acknowledgments for all the people who have helped me compile this information about UP's passenger cars.

Sources

Additional Reading -- More to read 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

Amtrak -- A separate index page for Amtrak information.

Union Pacific Passenger Trains On The Eve Of Amtrak -- Craig Sanders' excellent web site.

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