pit. There are more than a hundred vis- ible units on site on any given day and a multitude of others inside. It is, indeed, a sea of yellow. As impressive as this facility sounds, the shop is closed to the public.
Traffic and Commodities Action through Little Rock is on par
with the “Sunset Route” between El Paso and West Colton, rating somewhere be- tween 40 to 50 trains a day. If traffic from the old Cotton Belt route shifted to the MoPac main, the counts would be significantly higher, but that would pose capacity problems since each line han- dles about 30 trains daily. Northbound or Memphis-bound trains originating at North Little Rock aren’t figured in the 40-50 count here, thus Little Rock’s overall train numbers should be higher. The northwest segment between Van
Buren and North Little Rock (Van Buren Subdivision) sees 10-15 trains. The south-
TOP: Yard switching duties at North Little Rock were easily handled by these MP15s, with 1549 and 1553 pictured in October 1984. Coupled to the switchers are slugs 1410 and 1416, two of 14 that were delivered between 1979 and 1981. STEVE FORREST PHOTO LEFT: UP SD70M No. 4900 takes a spin on the North Little Rock turntable on March 23, 2014. BELOW: Disas- sembled locomotives are parked in front of the Downing B. Jenks Shop on February 14, 2015. This complex employs nearly 40 percent of the Union Pacific workforce in the state. More than 100 locomotives can be seen on the property on a typical day. The shop is named after the last president of the Missouri Pacific. JAMES R. DOUGHTY PHOTOS
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