UtahRails Photos

Index For This Page

This page was last updated on May 24, 2025.

Overview

Swapping Photos

Back in 2015 when I first began receiving and scanning the photos of Union Pacific steam locomotives, in what became the DDR Collection (for Dave, Dean, and Ralph), I was very concerned about ownership and copyrights. After much research and numerous email exchanges, I learned that during the 1950s and early 1960s there was a group of photographers who all swapped negatives like trading cards. It was the end of steam, and they were focused on documenting those events.

The names you see credited in the UtahRails collection, such as Stan Kistler, Dick Kindig, Harold Vollrath, Don Roberts, Robert Foster, and a few others, simply means that they had been in possession of one of many negatives taken at the time, and traded within a circle of railroad photographer friends. On several occasions as they visited each other or shared railfan trips, they took near duplicate views because they were standing side-by-side. Don Roberts was the source of many photos and he sold prints of his own photos, as well as prints from negatives he had traded from others. When he passed away, his large collection of negatives and prints was "divided among friends," but no one really knows what happened to his collection. All of these "traders" were seeking photos of locomotives they themselves could not see, and exposed extras of their own photos to share in as wide distribution as possible.

Jack Pfeifer was the source for many of the photos in both Dean Gray's and Ralph Gochnour's collections. Ralph and Dean were good friends with Jack Pfeifer, and each had a large collection of prints they had received over many years from Jack, made from negatives (his and others) from his negative trading days in the 1950s. At about the same time that he did his "West From Omaha" all-color book in 1990, Jack made several sets of 5x7 prints from negatives in his collection, and sold the sets of prints. Dean and Ralph received the test prints. Jack then donated his negatives and his slides to the Denver Public Library, but due to budget constraints, the collection is not available for viewing either in person, or online.

Many of the photos in the Vic Oberhansley collection were purchased as small contact prints and postcard prints from Stan Kistler and Robert Foster, two of the photograhers who sold prints from their own negatives, and prints from negatives they received in trade were .

DDR Collection (UP Steam)

A large part of the DDR collection comes from Dave England, who, in 2016, was 84. He lives here in the Salt Lake City area, and he bought hundreds of prints from all the guys advertising in Trains magazine in the 1955-1959 time period, all at 15 cents each. He and his new wife moved into their new home in 1959, and his railroad hobby took a back seat to everything else for several years as they raised their family. I've known Dave England since 1968 when I was in high school. One day back in December 2009, he showed up on my door step with a couple beat up old lunch sacks stuffed full of black and white prints. "Here, you want these?" Sure! He went on to tell me that he found them in the trunk of an old car he has had in storage, and had completely forgotten about them. In 2015, he mentioned he had several photo albums of UP steam locomotives, and asked if I would I like to see them.

(View the DDR Collection; 1068 photos)

The other 'D' in the DDR is Dean Gray, who passed away in 2015, and whose collection passed to his good friend Ralph Gochnour (the 'R' in DDR). Ralph had owned the Utah Pacific detail parts company until he sold the molds and masters to Tomar about 15 years ago. When I started scanning Dave England's collection, both Dean and Ralph shared their collections of black and white prints of photos of UP steam locomotives; some from Jack Pfeifer, and many, many others they themselves had collected from a variety of sources.

While I call it the DDR collection, others have called it the EGG collection, for England, Gray and Gochnour.

UtahRails Photo Albums -- A collection of photos and photo albums, including photos of historical subjects and detail photos for modeling purposes.

Dave England Photos -- A collection of photos taken by Dave England, along with photos from his collection.

Emil Albrecht Photos -- Information about Emil Albrecht, and the wonderful photos he took of railroading in Utah. Includes a link to online photo albums.

Gordon Cardall Photos -- Information about Gordon Cardall and his photos. Includes links to six separate online photo albums with his photos.

Jim Ady Photos -- Information about Jim Ady and his photos. Includes a link to an online album of 207 Jim Ady photos.

Rick Burn Photos -- A collection of 122 photos by Rick Burn, taken during his time here in Utah in 1969-1972. The photos have previously been shared on Trainorders.com, and are shared here on UtahRails with permission from Rick Burn.

Union Pacific Steam Locomotives -- A collection of a total of 1068 photos of Union Pacific steam locomotives. This is the "DDR" collection mentioned above.

Vic Oberhansley Photos -- Information about Vic Oberhansley and his photos. Includes a link to a group of 13 online albums of 1,196 photos taken by Vic. The subjects include Pullman passenger cars, D&RGW, SP, UP, WP, and photos of Eureka, Utah, taken in the period of the late 1950s through the 1970s.

Tech Talk

Tech Talk - Photos -- How I scan color slides, and color and black & white photo prints.

Other Photo Sites

Rob Sarberenyi's Diesel Walk-Around Series

Dick Harley's Photos -- Photos of freight cars and freight car models, with a focus on Pacific Fruit Express. Also includes images of painting diagrams for Union Pacific locomotives and cars.

New York Public Library Digital Collections -- A search query for "Union Pacific."

###