For as long as I can remember (which, for the record, is back to about 1968 in regard to the Union Pacific Railroad), the UP has been the railroad in southern California with the smallest footprint – just Las Vegas NV to Los Angeles at that time – but the greatest variety of off-line power. The UP's East Yard, near East Los Angeles (but actually in Commerce, at least as of 1960 when the city was founded), is where I saw power from Chicago & North Western, Chicago Burlington & Quincy, Denver & Rio Grande Western, Illinois Central, Milwaukee Road; Missouri-Kansas-Texas, Missouri Pacific, Rock Island and Western Pacific – long before the UP acquired many of these roads. And thus it was that a Western Pacific GP40-2, 3556, was teamed with UP GP30 732 at the part of East Yard that had a new enginehouse under construction in the early 1980s, most likely having traveled to the Los Angeles area from Salt Lake City. Back in the day, the UP was what one railfanned for colorful consists of pool power! After the UP merged with six other railroads in the last few years of the Twentieth Century, Western Pacific 3556 became Union Pacific 911 and, later still, UP 9990. (Commerce, California – May 26, 1983)
