UP 3985 makes a run on Sherman Hill in the days before she became a show horse. Cold winter days really accentuate steam exhaust.

A UP Challenger equipped with smoke lifters barrels down the UP mainline with a freight consisting mostly of boxcars.

A UP early Challenger speeds through Willow Island station with a long freight.

The 1992 Clinchfield Santa Train deadhead move is getting underway behind steam power, for a run down to Elkhorn City, and eventually Kingsport. I hope that the Challenger can someday again pull ... (more)

Railfans are getting their shots as the "Clinchfield 676" (UP 3985) has changed crews and is getting underway on ex-Clinchfield rails at the end of the old C&O. The occasion was the 50th... (more)

The Railroading Heritage of Midwest America held its annual "Walk Amongst Giants" fundraiser on June 29, 2024. The fundraiser allows visitors to go inside the former Rock Island steam sh... (more)

Union Pacific 4-6-6-4 3802 leads a 15 car Gold Coast Express (UP 2nd 24) near Hermosa Wyoming in 1952. Otto Conrad Perry photo, from my collection.

The Union Pacific brought Challenger #3995 to the 2001 NRHS convention hosted by the St. Louis Chapter NRHS, shown here enroute to St. Louis. The convention paid homage to the 150th anniversary of... (more)

Union Pacific train 717, the Los Angeles Challenger, is seen in Los Angeles at Pasadena Junction in 1940. Otto Conrad Perry photo, from my collection.

Union Pacific Challenger no. 3977 sits on display at Cody Park in North Platte, Nebraksa while showing the red, white, and blue colors for the 4th of July.

Union Pacific 3985 puts on an impressive display as it begins a photo runby. This was the infamous trip in which the coal burning 3985 set a lot of brush fires, which led the Union Pacific to chan... (more)

My great, great uncle Robert F. McKee, Sr., was a design engineer at Baldwin and he would give my father different Baldwin Locomotive Works builder's cards when my father would visit him in Collin... (more)

A unique line-up of steam power in the Blue Hour at the steam shop in Cheyenne, Wyoming includes UP 5511, UP 'Big Boy' 4014, UP 844, and UP Challenger 3985.

Union Pacific Thoroughbreds The crew of the steam program at Union Pacific Railroad set out to record the last time 844, 4014, and 3985 will ever be together again in the steam house i... (more)

Union Pacific Thoroughbreds The crew of the steam program at Union Pacific Railroad set out to record the last time 844, 4014, and 3985 will ever be together again in the steam house i... (more)