Southern Pacific Railroad

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2025 Wabtec is completing a three-year project to modernize 600 older Union Pacific locomotives, improving fuel efficiency, reliability, and reducing emissions.
2024 Union Pacific celebrated 150 years of maintaining its headquarters in Omaha.
December 18 2024 A Union Pacific train crashed into a semi-truck in Pecos, Texas, causing multiple locomotives and freight cars to derail. Two Union Pacific employees were killed, three were injured, and the Pecos Chamber of Commerce was damaged.
August 2024 Big Boy #4014, the world's largest operating steam locomotive, began its 'Heartland of America' tour starting in Cheyenne, Wyoming, visiting 14 states including Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas through October.
March 2024 Union Pacific received a critical letter from the Federal Railroad Administration regarding safety concerns due to extensive layoffs, with the FRA emphasizing the importance of maintaining highly trained personnel for critical railroad operations.
2023 Union Pacific announced its intention to surrender control and operation of commuter rail services and trains in Chicago to Metra, while retaining ownership and control of the right-of-ways of former Chicago & Northwestern lines radiating from Chicago.
September 2023 Union Pacific furloughed 138 workers, prompting a reprimand from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) for high rates of locomotive and car defects.
August 14 2023 Jim Vena became the Chief Executive Officer of Union Pacific, replacing Lance Fritz.
2022 Canadian Pacific Railway was dropped from the Equipment Management Pool (EMP), leaving Canadian National Railway as the only Canadian member of the intermodal freight transport service.
2022 Utah proposed bill HB405 to require Union Pacific to replace aging Tier 0 switching locomotives with hydrogen or electric engines, which was ultimately dropped after Union Pacific made voluntary commitments to replace some locomotives with less polluting alternatives.
2022 DDA40X No. 6936 was removed from the Union Pacific Heritage Fleet.
2022 Utah legislators passed HB181, a bill addressing Union Pacific's resistance to municipal rail crossing upgrades and clarifying maintenance cost responsibilities after the company altered a construction agreement in Logan, Utah.
2022 The Coachella Valley Firebirds of the American Hockey League began playing home games at the Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert.
2021 A State of Texas report identified an additional cancer cluster of lymphoblastic leukemia in children living near a Union Pacific Railroad rail yard.
April 2021 Union Pacific repainted an SD70M into a commemorative 'We Are ONE' paint scheme to honor Juneteenth and Pride Month.
2020 Houston residents filed lawsuits against Union Pacific Railroad Company following the discovery of a higher-than-expected incidence of certain cancers near a rail yard.
2020 Coachella Valley incorporated cities recorded a population of approximately 370,000 in the census.
2019 Union Pacific closed multiple facilities including Neff yard in Kansas City, Hinkle yard in Oregon, and Pine Bluff yard in Arkansas as part of an industry-wide shift towards Precision Scheduled Railroading.
2019 Union Pacific was rated the worst company to work for by 247wallst.com, with CEO Lance Fritz having a 12% approval rating and a 22% recommendation rating on Glassdoor.com.
2019 Union Pacific was ranked 134th on the Fortune 500 list of largest US corporations by revenue, with 41,967 employees.
November 2019 Union Pacific began cleaning out areas along the tracks in San Jose, California, after years of complaints about transient camps and graffiti, following threats of a lawsuit from the city.
November 8 2019 The George Bush commemorative locomotive 4141 was donated to the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.
September 7 2019 A remotely operated Union Pacific train derailed at the Albina Yard in Portland, Oregon, crashing into an overpass support column. Broken rails were cited as the cause, and four of six lanes were left unsafe.
August 2019 Robert LaRue Webb II, the waste water operator responsible for the 2018 oil spill, pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act and was sentenced to two years probation and a $2,500 fine.
June 6 2019 Union Pacific unveiled SD70ACe 1111, the 'Powered By Our People' unit.
2018 The Niland Geyser, a moving mud pot near the eastern shore of the Salton Sea, encroached on the railroad, requiring extensive engineering work to delay its movement and build a temporary diversion.
2018 UP No. 4141, a locomotive named in honor of President George H. W. Bush, pulled the president's funeral train on his final journey to College Station, Texas.
January 2018 A waste water operator at Union Pacific Albina Yard in Portland, Oregon negligently released thousands of gallons of oil into the environment, with some oil spilling into the Willamette River.
2017 Union Pacific decided to repaint all locomotives that were not in the current corporate colors, moving away from retaining predecessor railroad paint schemes.
October 19 2017 Union Pacific unveiled SD70AH 1943, 'The Spirit of the Union Pacific', painted to honor the United States armed forces.
2016 Union Pacific Railroad Co. was named as a defendant in a lawsuit seeking cleanup of a contaminated rail yard site in Lafayette, Louisiana, which operated from the late 1800s until the 1960s.
June 3 2016 A 96-car oil train derailed in the Columbia River Gorge near Mosier, Oregon. Eleven cars derailed, at least one caught fire, and crude oil spilled into the Columbia River.
May 2015 Union Pacific rostered 212 'patched' locomotives from predecessor railroads, including 22 from Chicago and North Western, 174 from Southern Pacific, 14 from St. Louis Southwestern, and 2 from Denver and Rio Grande Western.
2014 Union Pacific opened an intermodal terminal in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, for transfers to trucks.
May 25 2013 A Union Pacific train collided with a BNSF train in Chaffee, Missouri, injuring seven and causing over $10 million in damages. The investigation suggested the engineer likely fell asleep due to sleep apnea.
2012 The Coachella Valley Independent was founded online and later became a monthly print publication.
2012 Mary Bono Mack was defeated by Democrat Raul Ruiz in the congressional election and subsequently moved to Florida.
2012 Coachella Valley Weekly was founded as an independent weekly publication.
November 15 2012 A Union Pacific train struck a parade float in Midland, Texas, resulting in four fatalities and 16 injuries.
June 24 2012 Two Union Pacific trains collided head-on near Goodwell, Oklahoma, killing three crew members and causing $15 million in property damage. The NTSB attributed the accident to operator vision problems and failure to follow backup assistance protocols.
2010 Palm Springs Pride LGBT association conducted a poll and census revealing that an estimated 40-45 percent of Palm Springs' residents are LGBT, with nearby Cathedral City having approximately one-quarter LGBT population, significantly above average for a U.S. city.
September 28 2010 Union Pacific dedicated a specially painted GE ES44AC locomotive as a tribute to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
March 31 2010 Union Pacific dedicated a specially painted GE ES44AC locomotive commemorating the centennial of the Boy Scouts of America.

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