May 2, 2004 open house at Union Pacific's North Little Rock's Jenks Shops and North Little Rock's yards. Fifty of the 52 photos here were reduced in size to 320 pixels wide, so they shouldn't take too long to load. I put all the photos I made on this site to have a permanent record of the event.

Hundreds of people, many with small children, attended the Union Pacific Jenks Shops open house Sunday afternoon, May 2, 2004, in North
Little Rock, Arkansas. Along with UP tour guides inside the Jenks Shop locomotive repair facility ready to answer any questions, there were
free hot dogs and soft drinks - even a bunch of portable toilets set up. They also chartered about a half dozen North Little Rock school buses for personally guided tours of the Hump Yards and other parts of the large UP yard facilities. The lines for the buses were long.

My indoor photos were without flash with the ISO set to 800. A few of the statistics about the yard given by the 30-year UP employee onboard my bus was as follows:

1) UP averages 68 trains a day through Arkansas.
2) The North Little Rock yards handle an average of 62,000 cars a month (this March they handled 66,000).
3) The NLR yards are the largest capacity-wise on the UP system according to our guide.
4) UP uses 5 million gallons of diesel fuel a month in North Little Rock.
5) Besides repairing locomoitives, UP also repairs freight cars at North Little Rock, averaging 75 cars a month.
6) UP is the number one employer in the city with 1,900 employees with a payroll of $160 million a year.
7) The yard complex is five miles long with dozens of tracks. If all the tracks were laid end to end as one railroad, it would go 225
miles.

Here is the official UP Press Release of this event:
Omaha, NE, April 26, 2004 – Union Pacific Railroad will open its doors to the public on Sunday, May 2, from noon to 5 p.m. as part of the North Little Rock Centennial. Railroad employees will provide guided tours of the Downing B. Jenks locomotive repair shop and the five-mile long rail yard. North Little Rock is home to Union Pacific's second-largest classification yard and its largest locomotive repair facility.
   Displays will include:
A specially painted locomotive to honor the North Little Rock Centennial; A mobile crane lifting one end of a 400,000-pound locomotive; Various types of railcars;
Track maintenance machinery; and several safety information booths, including railroad/highway grade crossing safety.
Parking for all tours and displays will be at the locomotive shop, 800 Pike Ave.
   The railroad in North Little Rock was constructed by the Cairo & Fulton railroad in 1873. The Downing B. Jenks shop was completed in 1984 at a cost of $40 million. The classification yard was completed in 1962. Its 225 miles of track consist of 64 tracks in the classification yard, nine tracks to receive trains and 17 departure tracks, as well as a 14-track city yard for serving local industries. Today, Union Pacific is Arkansas' largest railroad with 1,658 miles of track.
   Union Pacific Corporation is one of America's leading transportation companies. Its principal operating company, Union Pacific Railroad, is the largest railroad in North America, covering 23 states across the western two-thirds of the United States. A strong focus on quality and a strategically advantageous route structure enable the company to serve customers in critical and fast growing markets. It is a leading carrier of low-sulfur coal used in electrical power generation and has broad coverage of the large chemical-producing areas along the Gulf Coast. With competitive long-haul routes between all major West Coast ports and eastern gateways, and as the only railroad to serve all six gateways to Mexico, Union Pacific has the premier rail franchise in North America.
   For further information, contact Mark Davis: (402) 271-5459.

Ken Ziegenbein




The entrance to Jenks Shops has this Centennial, No. 6938, on display. They had put fresh red lettering and numbers on it the day before.








An O-scale layout was put up by Arkansas Traveler Hobbies of Pine Bluff.


Various movies were shown, some steam, some Operation Lifesaver, some modern operations.






The left photo above goes with the EMD D32P Main Generator stats informational sheet.




These two photos are of the painting facility.




Three scenes of the north side of the repair facility. The lower right shows UP 3987 lifted by a crane.




Some crowd scenes. The photo lower right is of Charles and Sandy Allen from Texas.




'Fallen Flag' signs were hung around the model train table, including Frisco and Santa Fe (not shown)


They were serving free hotdogs and giving away and selling Union Pacific mementos, t-shirts, cups, etc.


Looking south from Jenks Shops. You can see the Arkansas State Capitol in the background.




A half dozen school buses took people on a guided tour of the North Little Rock yards (see narrative at the top of the site for stats). They did not let anyone out in the yard area. The people in line (lower right) were getting on the bus I had just left at the shop area.






The two air photos above are of the NLR hump yard facilities. As I was leaving about 2 p.m., the crowd was increasing as you can see by the long line for the tour buses.


The Main entrance as I was leaving. I posted these photos in the order I took them.