Omaha Train History As Presented at Kenefick Park

 Railroad Park is at the eastern gateway to Omaha.  It includes a history of the railroad in Omaha, and from Omaha to Sacramento.  

The Transcontinental Railroad
Ribbon of Steel Binding East to West

History of the Union Pacific and Omaha
The search for a transcontinental railroad route began in 1853, but regional partisanship between North and South prevented Congress from acting.  In 1862, after secession of the southern states, President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act.  The Act created Union Pacific Railroad and instructed Union Pacific and Central Pacific to bind the nation east to west with a ribbon of steel.  On May 10, 1869, the railroad was completed with the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Summit, Utah.

Lincoln established the eastern terminus of the railroad as the eastern boundary of the Missouri River directly across from "Omaha City."  On December 3, 1863, Union Pacific turned the first shovel of dirt at Omaha's ferry landing, about two miles north of here near what is now Qwest Center Omaha (now CHI Health Center).  The Civil War consumed investors, supplies and laborers, preventing real progress until 1865.
The start of rail construction brought business and immigrants to Omaha in unprecedented numbers.  Ferries and steamboats arrived daily, bringing workers and supplies for the railroad as well as for shops, homes, hotels and other establishments.  Omaha's population grew 300 percent from 1865 to 1871.  Its warehouses and markets flourished as the city became a conduit for goods and people headed by rail for the American West.

Agricultural advisors for Union Pacific brought the newest seeds, breeder stock and educational programs to local farmers, ensuring products and livestock would flow into Omaha's thriving market district and stockyards.

in 1905 William McKeen, Jr., challenged Omaha shop workers to create a self-contained, gasoline powered passenger rail car.  The resuoting McKeen Motor Car was shipped throughout the world.

Los Angeles architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood created one of the finest art deco buildings in America in 1931 with his design for Omaha's Union Station, now home of the Durham Western Heritage Museum.  Omaha was the halfway point for most cross-country travelers, and hundreds of worker made sure those travelers remembered their stop and the third-busiest rail center in the United States.

In 1905 Union Pacific's track workers created on of Omaha's most recognized geographic features, the elevated railroad that now parallels Interstate 80 between 32nd and 108th Streets.  To bridge the flood plains of the Big and Little Papillion creeks, track crews built massive wooden trestles from bluff to bluff, then dumped trainloads of dirt until the trestles were completely buried.

James Curran tested his ski lift prototype on Omaha's streets prior to sending the final design to Union Pacific's Sun Valley Resort in Idaho, where skiers for the first time could ride to the top of the mountain instead of holding a towrope.

The Harriman family began a century of leadership at Union Pacific when E.H. Harriman purchased the railroad on the steps of Union Pacific's Omaha freight house at Eighth and Jones Streets.  Today, 1,000 dispatchers control train movements across 23 states from the Harriman Dispatching Center in the converted freight house.

The Centennial
Locomotive 6900 was one of 47 "DDA-40X" locomotives built by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors exclusively for Union Pacific and according to Union Pacific specifications.  These Centennial locomotives were built in 1969 when Union Pacific was celebrating the 100th anniversary of the driving of the Golden Spike to complete the nation's first transcontinental railroad.
The 6600-horsepower Centennials, designed when the tonnage of freight trains was increasing draaticay, were built to carry heavier loads, farther, faster, and with less maintenance.  They are the worlds's largest single-unit diesel locomotives, requiring four axle trucks to distribute their weight within track loading limits.  Powered by two diesel engines, Centennials could reach 85 miles per hour on level track.  Power was transmitted to the wheels through electric traction motors, one for each set of wheels.  The Centennials hauled freight throughout the Union Pacific system from 1969 until 1984.
Locomotive 6900 was the first Centennial produced.  It left Omaha on its first run in May 1969, bound for Ogden, Utah, and the celebration of the 100th anniverary of the Golden Spike.  It was retired after logging nearly 2 million operating miles.  The last operating Centennial, Locomotive 6936, continues to operate as part of Union Pacific's Heritage Fleet.

 

For early settlers, the Missouri River Valley marked the dividing line between the comforts of the East and the wilds of the West.  Union Pacific Railroad, chartered to connect a continent, laid a route from Omaha that tamed the west and changed America forever.

American Locomotive Company, New York
Built for the Union Pacific Railroad