Peoria Station

Former president, George Herbert Walker Bush, left us at age 94 on November 30. His passing reminded me of video I shot of the Union Pacific locomotive which had been painted in presidential blue and white to coincide with the opening of Bush's presidential library and museum in College Station, Texas in 2005. I posted the video on December 1. Thanks to attention from international media, it went viral and as of early Thursday morning, has 27,839 views! Thanks to everyone who watched it! The video I posted was actually a decade old, having been recorded on October 31, 2008. UP 4141 led an intermodal train out of Los Angeles three days prior, traversed home rails to Kansas City and then BNSF's Transcon across Missouri and into Illinois. At Edelstein, it took the connection onto Union Pacific's Peoria Subdivision. Before returning to home rails, however, another unit in the consist ran into trouble, and was set out at on the UP line at Broadmoor (near Bradford) for repai...

My only encounter with the Union Pacific Railroad locomotive painted in Presidential blue and white to commemorate the "George Bush Presidential Library," was on October 31, 2008. The day turned out to be quite an adventure! Intermodal train KSGAP2 28 (Intermodal, Global Gateway South, American President Lines, Second Section, Date of Departure) left Los Angeles, California October 28, running the Sunset Route to El Paso, Texas and up the Golden State Route to Kansas City, then via trackage rights on competitor BNSF Railway’s Marceline and Chillicothe Subs to the Edelstein Connection where the train returned to home rails (Union Pacific's Peoria Subdivision). Unfortunately, a wheel slip problem on the UP 1988 (Missouri-Kansas-Texas heritage unit) forced the train to stop at Milepost 145, near North Rice Road, a few miles short of the connection. After assessing the situation, the train crew crept up to the crossing so a BNSF maintenance crew could get to th...