This was posted on Union Pacific's facebook page three hours ago:

As my office sits less than a mile from the steam shop, I have to consider the following as part of this news:

A.) Union Pacific obviously is making the life of the program a priority. It does not appear to me that UP is attempting to scrap the program.

B.) Scrapping is still a part of Union Pacific and it appears that indeed, some scrapping is about to be done. However, not in the traditional sense of the word. UP and big corporations have interesting ways of scrapping individuals. They don't just throw them them away, they get moved and moved and moved and moved until they finally go away.

C.) There are a number of burned bridges. Let us all hope that Mr. George can make and keep friends and keep from further burning any bridges on the system. Though many of us see the fact that three UP Steam Locomotives do not operate, many of us do not see the pile of heaping, smoldering timbers left behind countless trips called bridges. At least we can hope that the clean up team is arriving. If even one person at a time.

I personally wish Mr. George all the best and hope for the continued life of the program.

Kindly submitted,

John, I think we are both reading the same print between the lines. Best wishes to all concerned.

dave

John, I can only hope that your previous involvement with the steam program is recognized by Mr. George, and that you have the opportunity to work on them once again.

Had the "God's of Steam" sat all of us down five years ago and said to us; "In 2015 NS will have brought back almost half of their steam fleet and Union Pacific will be considering the elimination of their program." All of us would have said; "No possible way.....!!!"

Some great people have been included in the return of the 611, 4501 and 610. Many of them are past employees, volunteers and contractors. Scott Lindsay and I chatted at TRAIN/ARM this last November and I congratulated him on the great work he and many others are doing on the 611. It will be an exciting year to see the 611 in operation. TVRM and their team need to be noted as well for the great efforts they have made over the course of the past two years. Amazing, really.

Life has an interesting way of sorting itself out. Mr. George has a new adventure in front of him. My business changes and grows on a weekly and daily basis. I can assure all of you that if Union Pacific and specifically Mr. George wanted to speak with us, former employees and or former volunteers, I am most certain that some healthy conversations could be had.

For the time being, we all need to support the Union Pacific and we all need to do our part in letting them know that we all care. I have faith that Mr. George will do what is best and that he will try his hardest to make this work. I do not envy his position. Having to clean-up after a previous leader is never a fun or fulfilling challenge. It is my hope that he rises to the challenge and endures it well. We simply stand ready to help if and or when that time may or.......may not come.

Thank you for the kind comments,

I keep going back and forth on who is in charge of whom. On TO, it was suggested the new guy will be Ed's boss. But I don't know that they actually KNOW. I keep going back and forth-is heritage operations a part of the steam shop, or is the steam shop part of heritage operations. In the end, it's not a huge operation requiring a complex hierarchy, the titles are almost redundant. Maybe that's the point....

I asked a few folks down here if they knew the guy, and no one does, yet. Not a surprise, as my contacts are mostly operations crew, and cotton belt to boot.

Looked up his Linkedin, not a ton there, but he has a BS in electrical engineering. Been head of the Jenks shop since 2008. Seems ALMOST like a down grade in position-from running one of the biggest repair facilities on the planet, to running a steam shop with just a small handfull of equipment. But its possible that UP did that just to put some intense focus on getting things back in shape.

The title of Director (regardless of what he/she is Director of) out ranks a Manager or Sr. Manager as is the case in this situation. Mr. Dickens holds the title of Sr. Manager. Steve Lee outranked both positions when he left the company. Anybody with less of a title than Director would report to this position. It is not a downgrade for Mr. George. It may be somewhat of a lateral move. Indeed, the title of his position implies more of a global involvement in/over the entire Heritage Program (cars, locomotives, shops). From what we gather he is Cheyenne based at this stage.

Kindly,

The Trains Newswire has a short item about the announcement: Union Pacific appoints George as steam shop director (January 9, 2015)

The article includes Mr. George's new job title:

Would movement to a preservation program be considered a 'dead end,' career-wise? I know someone who was sent to handle the heritage program for an airline and he told me it was a dead end for him and it was a way for the company to keep him around but also a clear indication that they were sticking him where he 'could do no harm,' company-wise. Could this be the case with UP? Wouldn't someone climbing the ladder consider handling old equipment that really draw no revenue to be a dead end in management?
Just wondering...
I'm more than a little confused as to how anyone would have been led to the conclusion that they were, given the recent purchase/trade and move of 4014...

Assuming John is correct, then what we know is that Union Pacific (1) allocated a Director position to its Steam program and (2) that Director position was filled via a lateral move instead of a promotion.

Union Pacific Steam is a "face of the company" public relations program. I think being responsible for its turnaround would turn out to be a great career move!

Yeah, you'd think that, but is it really? I know people with UP who don't care much about the steam program at all.
For someone in management, maybe the better face of the company would be running the locomotive shop in Omaha or the Powder River Basin operations (in other words, the nuts and bolts that pays the bills).
Like I wrote earlier, I know someone who was 'exiled' to his company's version of UP steam and he was adamant that it was a dead-end gig, but to the public, it easily would appear to be the opposite case.
Not saying that UP steam is a dead end for managers, just wondering how the suits at UP see it, career-wise.

John reads TO, and that place has some characters who claim to have inside knowledge, but stay anonymous, and claim that the steam shop has scrapped out an absurd amount of precious spare parts, equipment, and tools. Like bigfoot, there is only loudmouths and blurry photos as proof. Some were speculating that this was an 'inside job' way of dismantling and disabling UP steam forever. I am sure UP steam is in troubling times but the story is almost 'too bad to be true'.

They are only anonymous if you don't know who they are. For those that do, it may as well be gospel because of the posters' intimacy to the subject matter. And the photos of 844's boiler were not blurry. There are at least three bonafide expert witnesses to the matter active on TO and as heartburn inducing as the subject matter may be, they aren't spinning webs for the fun of it.

KL

I think most can appreciate when the pictures were posted of 844's tubes and that there are people who called out that things weren't right in the shop. What is tiring though was the constant barage of name calling and bringing up trivial things that had no backing (He sits in the dumpster to listen to his employees talk? He's moving the program to Denver to be closer to his girlfriend? He kicked out the model railroad club because they were leaking information?). There were good facts that came from them but those facts were interdispersed amongst accuasions from people that obviously have an axe to grind.

I see your point/side and I hope you can see mine. In any case, the 'new' guy seems to be good news. In the end, the only way we are going to have verifiable truth is to see where the program goes from here. But we may never see the whole story.




That pretty much sums up my views on it. "those who shout the loudest ususally have the least to contribute"