in 1862 had it not been for the efforts of Theodore Judah, a young engineer from Connecticut, born in 1826. Judah loved building railroads back east. He became obsessed with the idea of the proposed Pacific Railroad connecting California and the Midwest. He was hired to move to Sacramento, survey the line of the Sacramento Valley Rail- road, and build the state’s first rail line out of the new capitol city. Judah’s wife, Anna, shared his adventurous spirit and his dreams of a Pacific rail- road. They both saw this move as a start on the west end of a transconti- nental rail line. Anna often accompa- nied her husband into the Sierras on his camping and survey trips. Her sketches and notes later became tangi- ble artifacts in the couple’s small Pacif- ic Railroad museum located in the halls of Congress where they pitched their vision to politicians, financiers, and anyone else who would listen. Judah joined a group of entrepreneurial mer- chants later known as the “Big Four,” Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, Col- lis Huntington, and Mark Hopkins, who had followed the gold rush west. Unfortunately, Theodore Judah did not live to see the first rails of the Union Pacific laid. Judah became ill in Pana- ma during one of his arduous trips from California to the east coast. He died in his wife’s arms in a hospital soon after landing in New York City in 1863. As I cruise down U.S. 30 out of Columbus into central Nebraska and the Big Bend region of the Platte River, my chances of dying on this trip may come from the insane photographers’ chase of No. 844 by the caravan of cars and trucks rather than from a tropical


34 NOVEMBER 2012 • RAILFAN.COM


disease. On narrow two lane highways, the mix of videographers pacing the train and still photographers trying to get ahead to set up another shot have a hard time co-existing.


Across the 100th Meridian At Grand Island, Nebraska, I met Randy Schoenstein, an air-brush artist, who brought his family down to the railroad in his red 1954 Chevrolet convertible. It is quite possible that Randy’s Chevrolet and a UP Northern could have crossed paths in Grand Is- land in 1954. After lubrication, the steam


train departed according to


schedule at 1:45 PM, Schoenstein went back to work, and I raced on across the heart of the Cornhusker State. The train barely slowed as it steamed through Kearny, Nebraska, center of a great avian migration each March when 500,000 sandhill cranes congre- gate for six weeks on an 80 mile stretch of the Platte River.


Driving west on U.S. 30, the land be- came more arid. Then I passed through Cozad,


Nebraska, and crossed the


100th Meridian where East meets West. West of Cozad, annual rainfall is below twenty inches per year and east of Cozad, the rainfall annually is above twenty inches annually. The Union Pa- cific Railroad reached the 100th Merid- ian on October 6, 1866. The Cozad de- pot was moved back from the tracks years ago, but a sign in front of the for- mer station still proclaims, “247 miles to Omaha.”


The steam train rolled into North Platte, Nebraska in the late afternoon. Steam crews prepared the train for the overnight near the site of where the fa-


ABOVE: Cheyenne is the base of operations for the UP steam program. OPPOSITE TOP: Union Pacific 844 picks up steam heading westbound out of Fremont, Nebraska, June 29. RIGHT: A canyon of grain silos in Chap- pell, Nebraska, dwarfs the 844 as she passes through town on June 30. BELOW: This is one of the first spots along the way where we no- ticed rugged and arid exposed cliffs begin to appear. This scene was captured at Point of Rocks bluff between Sidney and Potter as the steam special charged westbound on the Ne- braska main line.


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