(The following report appeared on the Wellington Daily News website on August 27.)
WELLINGTON, Kan. — Thanks to the Oklahoma Centennial celebration, a piece of railroad history is scheduled to pass through Wellington and Sumner County during September.
Steam Locomotive No. 844 — the last steam locomotive built for Union Pacific Railroad — now dubbed the Union Pacific Railroad Oklahoma Centennial Sooner Rocket starts through central Kansas and west central Oklahoma to commemorate the State of Oklahoma’s Centennial.
The train trip is scheduled for Sept. 7-18. The historic locomotive will run through Wellington and Sumner County on the Rock Island rails.
The purpose of this event is not only to celebrate Oklahoma’s centennial but also to educate the state and communities about the railroad’s existence and operation, emphasize railroad safety and build community relations between the railroad and local communities.
Steam Locomotive No. 844 will stop in Caldwell at the location of US 81 and Arapahoe Street on Sept. 9 at 10:30 a.m. and then again on Sept. 17 at 7 p.m.
The train is expected to leave Wichita at 8 a.m. on Sept. 9 and pass through Wellington on its way to Caldwell.
The Wichita Service Unit of the Union Pacific Railroad has invited special guests to participate in this exciting venture to celebrate the centennial.
Educational leaders, select high school students, law enforcement, emergency responders, railroad employees and service men or women are the select few who will have the privilege to make one of the scheduled trips.__This train trek will highlight the arrival of a steam locomotive with a passenger train in the region for the first time in over 50 years.
Railroad historians say this will be an exciting time to watch the crowd and enjoy the spectacle of a steam train departure.
Steam Locomotive No. 844 was delivered in 1944 and considered a high-speed passenger engine. The iron horse pulled such widely known trains as the Overland Limited, Los Angeles Limited, Portland Rose and Challenger trains.
Many people know the engine as the No. 8444, since an extra ‘4’ was added to its number in 1962 to distinguish it from a diesel numbered in the 800 series. The steam engine regained its rightful number in June 1989, after the diesel was retired.
When diesels took over all of the passenger train duties, No. 844 was placed in freight service in Nebraska between 1957 and 1959. It was saved from being scrapped in 1960 and held for special service.
The engine has run hundreds of thousands of miles as Union Pacific’s ambassador of good will. It has made appearances at Expo ’74 in Spokane, the 1981 opening of the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, the 1984 World’s Fair in New Orleans and the 50th Anniversary Celebration of Los Angeles Union Station in 1989.
Hailed as Union Pacific’s “Living Legend,” the engine is widely known among railroad enthusiasts for its excursion runs, especially over Union Pacific’s fabled crossing of Sherman Hill between Cheyenne and Laramie,Wyo.