Union Pacific Railroad

Richard Billingsley

Apr 2019 · Amberley Publishing Limited

About this ebook

One of the giants of American railroading, the Union Pacific Railroad serves a huge swathe of the Mid and Western United States, from the Great Lakes and the Deep South to the Pacific coast. The vast array of locomotives – over 8,000 – and diversity of loads combined with ever-changing scenery make for fascinating viewing and photography. One minute you can be watching as a fast hotshot double-stack intermodal train carrying as many as 300 containers flies by at over 70 miles an hour; moments later and the local goods is in view, dropping a wagon or two into the local factory complex. This collection of photographs, mainly from the south-western states, was taken through the lens of a UK-based photographer and attempts to show the reader just a small selection of the scenes and variety that the Union Pacific has to offer.

About the author

Richard Billingsley was first called to the railway in 1975 as a 9 year old lad, fascinated by the bells and clunks from a Great Western era signalbox. Relocating to North Wales in the early 2000s, the author has created an extensive record of the modern history of the line across the North Wales coast. Bored of the increasingly sterile UK railscene, he first discovered the American railroad during a family holiday to Florida in 2008. Immediately captivated, he's returned to capture the scene over a dozen times since, photographing the railroad in more than 20 states. And, if he's learnt anything, it's that you never know quite what will happen next...