User Manual

2
From the start, the FEF-2’s and 3’s suffered
from smoke drifting down around the cab.
To cure this, beginning in 1945 the road
began installing sheet-metal smoke “wings”
to those two classes; eventually the FEF-1’s
also got the wings. In 1946, the threat of a
coal strike prompted the UP to convert its
4-8-4’s to oil fuel. Also in ’46, the road
adopted a two-tone gray livery for its big
passenger engines; all the 4-8-4’s got this
treatment, although on later repaints the
accent striping color was changed from a
light gray to yellow before all-black was
reinstated in 1952. In an effort to improve
steaming, triple smokes stacks were applied
to an FEF-2 in one case and in three or four
cases to FEF-3s. Red oscillating warning
lights above the headlight became standard in
the late 1940’s.
The FEF’s remained in passenger service
until the mid-1950’s, when diesels began
bumping them to freight service (and occa-
sional pinch-hits for diesels on passenger
trains) on the east end of the UP. General
retirement began in 1956. The
last stand of
the FEF’s was during the busy summer and
Christmas seasons of 1958, when a grimy few
worked freights between Omaha and North
Platte, Nebraska.
Four of the great engines survive. FEF-1
814 and FEF-2 833 are displayed at museums
in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Ogden, Utah,
respectively. FEF-3 838 is in UP storage in
Cheyenne, Wyoming, which is home base for
No. 844. After a January 1960 stint as a
snow-melter in UP’s Council Bluffs yard,
the 844 entered excursion service in
November 1960. Since then, she’s racked up
nearly 300,000 miles as a symbol of the
proud railroad’s heritage. She was renum-
bered 8444 in 1962 so a GP30 diesel could
carry “844”; when the GP30 left the UP roster
in 1989, the 4-8-4 got her number back. She
even wore the postwar gray livery for a few
years in the late 1980’s. Since 1981, she’s
shared UP heritage duties with Challenger
No. 3985. Recently overhauled, No. 844
looks set to carry on the legend of Union
Pacific’s great 4-8-4’s for years to come.
Robert S. McGonigal
Editor, Classic Trains magazine
UNION PACIFIC 4 - 8 - 4 FAMILY
Class FEF-1 FEF-2 FEF-3
Road Numbers 800-819 820-834 835-844
Builder, year Alco, 1937 Alco, 1939 Alco, 1944
Cylinder bore x stroke 24” x 32” 25” x 32” 25” x 32”
Boiler pressure (PSI) 300 300 300
Driver diameter 77 80 80
Tractive effort (lbs.) 63,600 63,800 63,800
Engine weight (lbs.) 465,000 483,000 490,700
Wheelbase 97 ft. 6 in. 98 ft. 5 in. 98 ft. 5 in.
Fuel (all changed to oil, 1946) Coal Coal Coal
Tender type 12-wheel Centipede Centipede
Fuel capacity (tons) 25 25 25
Water capacity (gallons) 20,000 23,500 23,500