As some of you may know m, George HW Bush passed away at 94. There have been many rumors flying around over the years that UP 4141 will be used to pull his funeral train, then go into retirement at his library. It appears that this may become a reality for this fairly unused locomotive. My condolences go to the Bush Family.

That is what I have heard. 1943 and 4141 are to pull his funeral train. As reported on Facebook, "1943 is screaming across Nebraska with 19 cars in tow with priority over every train on the railroad." 4141 was stored in Little Rock, AR. I have heard it is to pull the funeral train, be gutted, and then the shell put on display in the Bush Presidential Library.

What is 4141?

why gut it?

Latest on Trains Newswire site, not behind the paywall.

http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2018/12/01-up-4141-expected-to-participate-in-bush-funeral-train

Why not?

Does anyone know why this locomotive has been so infrequently used by the UP? I know that a large chunk of UP's operating fleet was sidelined because of reduced traffic levels during the 2007-10 recession, but I'm wondering if that was the only reason - especially considering this was a heritage unit with very low mileage. I know that it was reactivated for a one-time trip from Little-Rock to Chicago and back in 2012 and that it has received periodic maintenance from the Little Rock shop crews, including a new snow plow and touch up paint in 2015. I suppose the only explanation I can think of is that it would be a very attractive target for vandalism. Just curious.

It should be fairly obvious that not only would it be a ripe target for vandalism and grafitti both inside and out if it was in service when the need for it came, Murphy's Law says it would be on some other railroad or at the far end of UP's system, allowing little time to get it back, get it to North Little Rock, stop whatever work was going at NLR at the time, clean it, repaint it and make it sparkling and ready for the funeral train.

Seems like a waste if it's to be gutted and put on display.

I think it was nice of Union Pacific to give it a special paint job and to keep it close at hand and well cared for with eyes towards today. But it seems like it should be repainted afterwards and allowed to live a normal life for Union Pacific's stakeholders, before being donated and repainted back to its special colors and put on display at some date in the future.

Perhaps it makes some sense behind the scenes, such as if UP has a few stored SD70ACe's with major component failures that will benefit from this nice gesture. On the surface though, it was a pretty expensive locomotive to run for barely 200,000 miles.

To provide some context at how low a figure that is for a 13 year old mainline freight locomotive, in the mid 1970's UP's Centennials were averaging 15-20k miles a month, and were ultimately retired with approximately 10 years of service and 2 million miles on each. It's an admittedly high utilization rate for the times that no other fleet of power was seeing, but I suspect not too out of the ordinary these days in today's era of run through power.

If the locomotive is a problem design, and I don't know if it is, U.P. can retire it, salvage worthwhile parts, donate it, and claim it as a tax-free donation. I have heard that the only reason is was so designated was because "W's" Vice-President, Cheney, had pull with U.P. and requested it.

"I've heard..." I get so sick of these innuendos. He was a true American hero. He put himself at risk when the country needed him. Agree with his policies as President or not he was one heck of a great guy. What have any of us done for the country?
If the UP wants to donate it, then fine. They've done many great things for railroad history and continue to do so.
So salute and accept it. Just my $,02 of course.
Ned

Just a little 'local' history on this unit, to put things in perspective.

4141 spent a LOT of time in front of the Jenks shops in North Little Rock over it's lifetime. Once in a while when Sr. was sick they used to zip it down to Houston but that has been happening less in the last few years. They would pull it out and it would run freight once in a while. While in NLR, much of the time it was 'shrink wrapped', I think it was also parked for a few years at one point with a blown turbo or some other major failure that eventually got fixed.

Today, Saturday, around 5:30 I checked and I could not find it any place tat I can legally see. Now, as of today, a video of it sandwiched between two other engines but otherwise 'light' has shown itself on facebook, at a crossing in Beardon, Arkansas. At the rate it's moving, I expect it will show up in the Houston area sometime early AM Sunday.

While some of us tangle with the hardware of the "locomotive", the significance
of a presidential funeral train is fascinating for a variety of railroading enthusiasts.
I didn't do a lot of searching on the subject but it appears the last time a deceased president
was moved by train was in 1969 when Eisenhower passed away.
Perhaps additional blanks can be filled in related to funeral trains in the United States.
Noting the schedule has been established for Bush's train, I wonder if the specific funeral route has been determined etc.

John

I agree. If this becomes a funeral train as we define it traditionally, it will be a special event just for its rail relevance alone.

I believe Dick Cheney was on the board of UP for a while, correct?