View source for Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad)

{{short description|Railway section in the central and western United States}}
{{About|a passenger train route in the United States||Overland Route (disambiguation){{!}}Overland Route}}
{{use mdy dates|date=November 2022}}
[[File:Overland Limited.jpg|thumb|The Overland Limited leaving [[16th Street station (Oakland)]], in 1906]]

The '''Overland Route''' was a train route operated jointly by the [[Union Pacific Railroad]] and the [[Central Pacific Railroad]]/[[Southern Pacific Railroad]], between the eastern termini of [[Council Bluffs, Iowa]], and [[Omaha, Nebraska]],<ref>{{cite web| url=http://cprr.org/Museum/Lincoln_1864.html| title=Executive Order of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, Fixing the Point of Commencement of the Pacific Railroad at Council Bluffs, Iowa. dated March 7, 1864| work=38th Congress, 1st Session SENATE Ex. Doc. No. 27| via=CPRR.org}}</ref> and the [[San Francisco Bay Area]], over the grade of the [[first transcontinental railroad]] (aka the ''"Pacific Railroad"'') which opened on May 10, 1869. Passenger trains that operated over the line included the ''Overland Flyer'', later renamed the [[Overland Limited (UP train)|''Overland Limited'']], with its eastern terminal in [[Chicago]].

The Overland Route remains a common name for the line from northern California to Chicago, now owned entirely by the Union Pacific.<ref name="UPNAMES">{{cite web| url=http://www.uprr.com/aboutup/maps/attachments/upcomnam.pdf| author=Union Pacific Railroad| title=UP common rail names| access-date=2010-05-08}}</ref> The route is now primarily used for freight, with a few portions used by [[Amtrak|Amtrak's]] ''[[California Zephyr]]'' passenger train.

== History ==
[[File:CPRR & UPRR Display Ads May 1869.jpg|right|thumb|180px|Display ads for the CPRR and UPRR the week the rails were joined on May 10, 1869]]
[[File: Overland RR Ticket Office in the Palace Hotel SF.jpg|thumb|180px|The Overland's SF ticket office at the Palace Hotel]]
[[File:Donner Pass Track 1 Grade.jpg|thumb|180px|Donner Lake (left) and the now abandoned original CPRR (later SPRR) Track #1 grade over Donner Pass]]
[[File: Overland Route (SP UP) Schedule December, 1945.jpg|thumb|180px|Overland Route schedule, December 1945]]

The name harkens back to the [[Central Overland Route]], a [[stagecoach]] line operated by the ''Overland Mail Company'' between [[Salt Lake City, Utah]], and [[Virginia City, Nevada]], from 1861 to 1866, when [[Wells Fargo (1852–1998)|Wells Fargo & Company]] took over the stagecoach's operation. Wells Fargo ended this stagecoach service three years later.

While the Council Bluffs/Omaha to San Francisco "Pacific Railroad" grade was opened in 1869, the name “Overland” was not formally adopted for any daily extra-fare train over the route until almost two decades later. On November 13, 1887, the Union Pacific inaugurated service of its ''[[Overland Limited (UP train)|Overland Flyer]]'' between Omaha and [[Ogden, Utah]], where passengers and [[through car]]s were transferred to the Southern Pacific, which had acquired the CPRR's operations on that line in 1885 under a 99-year lease. The UP changed its designation to the ''Overland Limited'' on November 17, 1895, and service continued as a daily train under that name in one form or another for almost seven decades.<ref name=Express>{{cite web| url=http://www.periodpaper.com/index.php/subject-advertising-art/railroads-trains/vintage-ads/1896-ad-north-western-line-pacific-express-overland-rr| archive-url=https://archive.today/20130131093015/http://www.periodpaper.com/index.php/subject-advertising-art/railroads-trains/vintage-ads/1896-ad-north-western-line-pacific-express-overland-rr| url-status=dead| archive-date=31 January 2013| title=Ad for the Pacific Express and Overland Limited| year=1896| publisher=McClure's| access-date=20 March 2012}}</ref><ref name=Pacific>{{cite news| url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1913&dat=19010529&id=SNEgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0GoFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4392,2021846| title=Ad for Pacific Express and Overland Limited |date=29 May 1901| newspaper=Lewiston Evening Journal| via=Google News| access-date=20 March 2012}}</ref> For the first dozen years that the SP met the UP's ''Overland'' trains, however, it dubbed its service the "Ogden Gateway Route"; its connecting westbound trains operated as the ''Pacific Express'' and eastbound trains as the ''Atlantic Express.'' The SP finally adopted the name the ''Overland Limited'' in 1899 for its portion of the run as well.

The original {{convert|1911|mi|km}} of the route from Omaha to San Francisco traversed some of the most desolate (as well some of the most picturesque) lands of the western two-thirds of the North American continent. While the trip originally took low-fare emigrant trains a full week (or more) to complete, by 1906 the electric lighted all-Pullman ''Overland Limited'' covered the route in just 56 hours.<ref>{{cite book| title=The Official Guide of the Railways and Steam Navigation Lines of the United States, Porto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Cuba| location=New York| publisher=National Railway Publication Co.| date=July 1906| page=654}}</ref>

[[E. H. Harriman]] bought the bankrupt Union Pacific in 1897; in 1901, he assumed control of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific as well. The rebuilding of the Overland Route followed: hundreds of miles of double track, hundreds of miles of signals, and dozens of realignments to reduce grades, curvature, and perhaps distance. (The rebuilding actually started before the CP/SP acquisition—the map in the May 1969 issue of ''Trains'' shows the Howell-to-Bossler stretch realigned in 1899.)

By 1926, the UP route from Council Bluffs/Omaha to Ogden was continuous double track, except for the Aspen Tunnel (east of Evanston, Wyoming), which remained a bottleneck until 1949. The CP/SP portion of the route was also largely double-tracked during this period, with the completion of such projects as the 1909 Hood Realignment between Rocklin and Newcastle, double-tunneling along the Sierra Grade including at Cisco and the summit (Tunnel #41), and the 1924 agreement to [[directional running|share tracks]] across Nevada with the [[Western Pacific Railroad]]'s [[Feather River Route]].<ref>{{cite press release| url=https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aN_wghG08vnU| url-status=dead| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140903084240/https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aN_wghG08vnU| archive-date=September 3, 2014| title=Union Pacific Donner Pass Track Improvement and Tunnel Clearance| author=Union Pacific Railroad| date=November 23, 2009| website=Bloomberg}}</ref>

Among the most important improvements to the original grade was the [[Lucin Cutoff]], a new {{convert|102.9|mi|km|adj=on}} stretch from just west of Ogden to Lucin, a few miles east of the Nevada border. It included a 12-mile (19&nbsp;km) trestle on wooden pilings across the [[Great Salt Lake]]. Opened in 1904, this line cut {{convert|43.8|mi|km}} off the line, eliminated 3,919 degrees of curvature, and removed {{convert|1515|ft|m}} of climb from the route, thus decreasing the steepest SP grade east of Lucin from 90 feet per mile to 21.

But many other sections of the original 1860s grade were harder to improve on, notably over the Sierra Nevada between [[Colfax, California]], and [[Reno, Nevada]]. The newer second track follows a better route here and there, but the original route changed little (except for the removal of the wooden snowsheds, or their replacement by nonflammable concrete ones) until the 1993 abandonment of the 6.7-mile section of the Track No. 1 crossing of the summit between Norden and Eder which includes the original {{convert|1659|ft|m|adj=mid|-long}} [[Donner Pass#Railroad & Donner Pass|Summit Tunnel]] (No. 6). Traffic was sent instead over the easier-to-maintain Track No. 2 and through the {{convert|10322|ft|m|adj=mid|-long}} tunnel called [[Tunnel No. 41|“The Big Hole” (No. 41)]] which had been driven under [[Mount Judah|Mt. Judah]] a mile south of the Pass when that portion of the line was double tracked in 1925. Aside from those modifications, the Sierra grade looks much the same to train passengers as it did when the line opened in 1868.

=== Connection to Chicago ===
From the start-up of the ''[[Overland Limited (UP train)|Overland Flyer]]'' in 1887 the [[Chicago and North Western Railway]] handled Overland Route trains between Chicago and Omaha.{{sfn|Beebe|1963|p=28}} On October 30, 1955, passenger operations east of Omaha shifted to the [[Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad]] (the "Milwaukee Road").{{sfn|Scribbins|1970|p=116}}

=== Demise ===
[[File:UP Overland Limited.jpg|thumb|right|"[[Drumhead (sign)|Drumhead]]" logos such as this often adorned the ends of the [[observation car]]s on the ''Overland Limited''.]]
As intercity passenger rail travel began to decline after World War II and into the 1950s with the growth of the airline industry and development of the [[Interstate Highway System]], the Overland route gradually lost its luster and service declined. After almost seven decades of continuous operation, the ''Overland Limited'' came to an end as a daily train on July 16, 1962, when the [[Interstate Commerce Commission]] approved termination of the service. While the train continued to run until Labor Day (with some additional holiday runs from Christmas to the New Year), the name “Overland” did not appear in the schedules of the UP or SP again after its last run on January 2, 1963. The only daily passenger train between Omaha and the San Francisco Bay area today is the ''[[California Zephyr]]'', operated by [[Amtrak]] and mostly along a different, more scenic route. The Zephyr only uses the Overland Route in the states of California and Nevada, passing through [[Salt Lake City]] instead of [[Ogden, Utah|Ogden]] and traveling via the [[Central Corridor (Union Pacific Railroad)|Central Corridor]] to [[Denver]] instead of [[Cheyenne, Wyoming|Cheyenne]].<ref>{{cite book| editor-last=Cooper| editor-first=Bruce Clement| title=The Classic Western American Railroad Routes| location=New York| publisher=Chartwell Books/Worth Press| year=2010| isbn=978-0-7858-2573-9| pages=44–45}}</ref>{{sfn|Beebe|1963|p=}}{{page needed|date=September 2021}} In 1996, the Union Pacific again acquired the Southern Pacific, resulting in the entire Chicago-Oakland line being owned by a single company.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.uprr.com/aboutup/history/uprr-chr.shtml| title=Chronological overview| author=Union Pacific Railroad| access-date=2010-11-03| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060810170628/http://www.uprr.com/aboutup/history/uprr-chr.shtml| archive-date=2006-08-10| url-status=dead}}</ref>

== Route description ==

=== Council Bluffs/Omaha to Ogden (via the Union Pacific) ===

[[File:Great Overland Route Timetable Cover 1881.JPG|thumb|150px|UPRR & CPRR "Great American Over-Land Route" Timetable cover 1881]]
[[File:Thousand Mile Tree.jpg|thumb|150px|The "Thousand Mile Tree" located {{convert|1000|mi|km}} west of Omaha, Nebraska, on the UPRR grade of the Overland Route]]
Heading west from Council Bluffs/Omaha over the same wide-open plains of Nebraska's [[Platte River]] Valley that had been followed by so many wagon trains from the 1840s through the 1860s, Overland trains passed first through [[Fremont, Nebraska|Fremont]], [[Grand Island, Nebraska|Grand Island]], and [[Kearney, Nebraska|Kearney]] (196 miles from Omaha) where all the wagon trails from the [[Missouri River]] communities between Omaha and Kansas City had once converged. There the famous [[Fort Kearney]] had been built by the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] in 1858 to protect the [[Oregon Trail|Oregon–California Trail]] heading west, and from which, under the direction of Union Generals [[Ulysses S. Grant|U.S. Grant]] and [[William T. Sherman|W.T. Sherman]], soldiers had been dispatched to protect UP surveyors and construction crews from Indian attack as the road progressed across [[Nebraska]] towards [[Wyoming]].

By the time travelers on the Overland Route crossed into Wyoming at [[Pine Bluffs, Wyoming|Pine Bluffs]], they had traveled some {{convert|470|mi|km}} westward and risen in elevation above sea level from the {{convert|1033|ft|m}} at Omaha to {{convert|5047|ft|m}}. The [[Rocky Mountains]] first came into passengers’ view {{convert|20|mi|km}} further on at [[Hillsdale, Wyoming|Hillsdale]] with the appearance of the dark crests of the [[Laramie Range]]. About {{convert|36|mi|km}} further west the route reached Sherman, the highest point on the line at {{convert|8013|ft|m}}, on a high and rugged upland with bold rock masses eroded into fantastic, picturesque shapes.

The route crossed the [[Continental Divide]] at Creston, some {{convert|737|mi|km}} west of Omaha. At [[Green River, Wyoming|Green River]] passengers were treated to views of two of the most spectacular rock formations in Wyoming—Man's Face directly southwest of the station, and Castle Rock just north of it. Six miles after crossing the [[Bear River (Great Salt Lake)|Bear River]] at [[Evanston, Wyoming|Evanston]] the route entered Utah, a land which would provide passengers with close-up views of some of the most unusual rock formations of the entire trip.

After passing [[Henefer, Utah|Henefer]] where [[Brigham Young]] and his [[Mormon]] pioneers had turned southward in 1847 to cross the [[Wasatch Mountains]] into Emigration Cañon, perhaps the two most famous features on the Union Pacific's section of the Overland, [[Thousand Mile Tree]] and [[Devil's Slide (Utah)|Devil's Slide]], came into view on the west, and south sides of the track, respectively. Entering the Valley of the [[Great Salt Lake]], the route soon reached Ogden, some {{convert|1029|mi|km}} from Omaha. Here the Union Pacific lines diverged to Los Angeles and the Pacific Northwest while the Southern Pacific (which acquired operational control of the CPRR's original Pacific route under lease in 1885) took charge of the “Overland Limited” and other trains on to San Francisco.

=== Ogden to San Francisco (via the Central Pacific/Southern Pacific) ===
When the route opened in 1869, trains reached the [[San Francisco Bay]].

For the 35 years after the driving of the [[Golden Spike|“Last Spike”]] at [[Promontory, Utah|Promontory Summit]] in 1869, all trains traveling west of Ogden passed over the site of that seminal event as they made their way around the northern end of the Great Salt Lake. In November 1903, the SP opened the [[Lucin Cutoff]], a {{convert|102.9|mi|km|adj=on}} stretch of track featuring a {{convert|12|mi|km|adj=on}} trestle built on pilings across the Great Salt Lake. Ten miles past Lucin, the “Overland” crossed into Nevada at Tecoma, the nearest railroad town to the silver, copper, and lead deposits discovered in the region in 1874.

Passing through other western Nevada mining centers and through [[Wells, Nevada|Wells]], an important supply point on the old [[Emigrant Trail]], the line then followed the valley of the {{convert|300|mi|km|adj=on}} long [[Humboldt River]]. Devil's Peak, a perpendicular rock rising {{convert|500|ft|m}} from the edge of the Humboldt River, dominated the canyon scenery at Palisade while the last major stop in Nevada was Reno with the Sierra Nevada mountains dominating the view ahead.

The next hundred miles of grade from [[Reno, Nevada|Reno]] to [[Colfax, California]], were by far the most challenging to build and provided the most impressive views of the whole route, although for much of that stretch passengers could see nothing as trains traveled through miles of tunnels and snowsheds. After passing [[Verdi, Nevada]]—which in November 1870 had become the site of the first train robbery on the Pacific coast—the Overland Route crossed into California and followed the Truckee River up a picturesque canyon to the town of Truckee on Donner Lake where the ill-fated [[Donner Party|George Donner party]] had been snowbound in the winter of 1846–7.

A serpentine climb around the east end of the lake and up Mt. Judah brought the Overland to the {{convert|1659|ft|m|adj=mid|-long}} Summit Tunnel at 7,018 feet at Donner Pass and the start of a {{convert|105|mi|km|adj=on}} descent to [[Sacramento, California|Sacramento]] located just {{convert|35|ft|m}} above sea level. Travel over this section could be quite treacherous in the winter as the Southern Pacific had to clear as much as {{convert|50|to|60|ft|m}} of snowfall as well as ice from water dripping in the tunnels. The miles of showsheds needed to keep the line passable left the impression among passengers that they were “railroading in a tunnel” for much of the route. The wooden snowsheds sometimes caught fire from lightning strikes or embers from steam locomotives.

Still there were some extensive views available to passengers in the Sierras, the most famous of which{{citation needed|date=December 2017}} was that from “Cape Horn”<ref>{{cite web| url=http://cprr.org/Museum/Sierra_Grade_8-2003/Cape_Horn/index.html| title=Cape Horn| website=CPRR.org| date=August 28, 2006}}</ref> just above the town of Colfax where the grade was carved out of the side of a mountain, providing a panoramic view across Green Valley of the [[American River]] flowing in a canyon some {{convert|1322|ft|m}} below. This spot was so popular that for many years the Southern Pacific stopped the ''Overland'' and most other trains for a few minutes so that passengers could get off the train and take it all in from a special observation area.{{citation needed|date=December 2017}}

When the route opened in 1869, trains reached the [[San Francisco Bay]] area from Sacramento via a {{convert|140|mi|km|adj=on}} line (built by the original Western Pacific Railroad) by way of [[Stockton, California|Stockton]] over [[Altamont Pass]], and on through [[Niles Canyon]] first to a pier at [[Alameda, California|Alameda]], and shortly thereafter to the nearby two-mile long [[Oakland Long Wharf]] (later called the "SP Mole") from which San Francisco was then accessed by ferry. In 1876, however, the CPRR acquired a line built by the [[California Pacific Railroad]] from Sacramento to [[Vallejo, California|Vallejo]] and in 1879 completed an extension of that road {{convert|17|mi|km}} across the [[Suisun Marsh]] to [[Benicia, California|Benicia]]. There the CPRR established a [http://cprr.org/Museum/Solano/index.html ferry service] to carry its trains a little more than a mile across the [[Carquinez Strait]] to [[Port Costa, California|Port Costa]] from which they ran down the southern shoreline of the Strait and [[San Pablo Bay]], and then along eastern side of the San Francisco Bay to the Oakland Long Wharf, thereby cutting about {{convert|50|mi|km}} off the journey from Sacramento. After half a century of operation, the train ferry was replaced in October 1930 by a massive drawbridge built by the SP between Benicia and [[Martinez, California|Martinez]]. It is still in use today.<ref>{{cite book| title=Along the Union Pacific System: The Overland Trail and the Union Pacific Railroad| location=Omaha| publisher=Union Pacific Railroad Company| year=1928}}</ref>

<gallery widths="200px" heights="220px">
File:Overland Limited Advertisement c1900.jpg|Magazine display advertisement for the ''"Overland Limited"'' {{circa| 1905}}
File:Donner Pass Summit Tunnel West Portal.jpg|The West portal of the "Summit Tunnel" (#6) at [[Donner Pass]]
File:SPRR Ferry "Contra Costa".jpg|SP train ferry ''Contra Costa''
</gallery>

===Subdivisions===
{{Geneva Subdivision}}
{{Clinton Subdivision}}
{{Boone Subdivision}}
{{Blair Subdivision}}
{{Columbus Subdivision}}
{{Kearney Subdivision}}
{{Sidney Subdivision}}
{{Laramie Subdivision}}
{{Rawlins Subdivision}}
{{Evanston Subdivision}}
{{Lakeside Subdivision (UP)}}
{{Shafter Subdivision|collapsed=y}}
{{Elko Subdivision}}
{{Nevada Subdivision|collapse=y}}
{{Roseville Subdivision|collapse=y}}
{{Martinez Subdivision}}

The modern incarnation of the Union Pacific Railroad has divided the Overland Route into the following subdivisions:

* [[Union Pacific West Line|Geneva Subdivision]]: [[Chicago, Illinois]], to [[Clinton, Iowa]]
* [[Clinton Subdivision]]: Clinton to [[Boone, Iowa|Boone]]
* [[Boone Subdivision]]: Boone to [[Missouri Valley, Iowa]]
* [[Blair Subdivision]]: Missouri Valley to [[Fremont, Nebraska]] (this subdivision bypasses [[Omaha, Nebraska]])
* [[Omaha Subdivision]]: Missouri Valley to Fremont (via Omaha)
* [[Columbus Subdivision (Union Pacific Railroad)|Columbus Subdivision]]: Fremont to [[Grand Island, Nebraska|Grand Island]]
* [[Kearney Subdivision]]: Grand Island to [[North Platte, Nebraska|North Platte]]
* [[Sidney Subdivision]]: North Platte to [[Cheyenne, Wyoming]]
* [[Laramie Subdivision]]: Cheyenne to [[Rawlins, Wyoming|Rawlins]]
* [[Rawlins Subdivision]]: Rawlins to [[Green River, Wyoming|Green River]]
* [[Evanston Subdivision]]: Green River to [[Ogden, Utah]]
* [[Lakeside Subdivision (Union Pacific)|Lakeside Subdivision]]: Ogden to [[Alazon, Nevada|Alazon]] (line switchover near [[Wells, Nevada]])
* [[Shafter Subdivision]]: Alazon to [[Elko, Nevada|Elko]]
* [[Elko Subdivision]]: Elko to [[Weso, Nevada|Weso]] (line switch near [[Winnemucca, Nevada|Winnemucca]])
* [[Nevada Subdivision]]: Weso to [[Sparks, Nevada|Sparks]]
* [[Roseville Subdivision]]: Sparks to [[Roseville, California]]
* [[Martinez Subdivision]]: Roseville to [[Oakland, California]]

<gallery widths="300px" heights="190px">
File:Union Pacific Overland Route cartoon circa 1900 Los Angeles.jpg|Union Pacific Overland Route promotional image, {{circa| 1900}}
File:Pacific Railroad Profile 1867.jpg|Original profile of the CPRR/UPRR "Over-Land Route" of the Pacific Railroad
File:The Overland Route 1908 Map.jpg|"The Overland Route to the Road of a Thousand Wonders: The Route of the Union Pacific & Southern Pacific from Omaha to San Francisco - A Journey of Eighteen Hundred Miles Where Once the Bison & the Indian Reigned"<br>Union and Southern Pacific Railroad Passenger Departments, 1908.
</gallery>

== See also ==
* [[First transcontinental railroad]]—covers the construction of this rail line
* ''[[Overland Limited (ATSF train)|Overland Limited]]''—a similarly named passenger train, operated by the [[Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway]]

== Citations ==
{{Reflist}}

== General and cite deferences ==
* {{Cite book|last = Beebe|first = Lucius Morris|author-link =Lucius Beebe|title = The Overland Limited|url = https://archive.org/details/overlandlimited00beeb|url-access = registration|publisher = [[Howell-North Books]]|year = 1963|isbn = 0831070382}}
* {{Scribbins-Hiawatha}}
* {{Solomon-UP}}

== External links ==
{{commons category}}
* [http://www.cprr.org/Museum/USGS-1916-Bulletin-612/index.html Maps of the Overland Route, 1915]

{{UP Passenger}}
{{Milwaukee Road named trains}}

[[Category:Named passenger trains of the United States]]
[[Category:Passenger trains of the Chicago and North Western Railway]]
[[Category:Passenger trains of the Milwaukee Road]]
[[Category:Passenger trains of the Southern Pacific Transportation Company]]
[[Category:Passenger trains of the Union Pacific Railroad]]
[[Category:Rail infrastructure in California]]
[[Category:Rail infrastructure in Nevada]]
[[Category:Rail infrastructure in Utah]]
[[Category:Railway services discontinued in 1962]]
[[Category:Railway services introduced in 1887]]
[[Category:Union Pacific Railroad lines]]