The Jacks Were Back when the grips of the early 1980's recession finally lifted and western railroads found themselves short on power. The issue was magnified when steamship lines started shipping overseas containers in the form of double stack container trains to the nation's interior. Union Pacific and other railroads were scrambling to handle the sudden increase of business needing locomotives wherever they could find them. Of course, I didn't mind this dilemma at all because UP's Centennials were stored in the early 80's before I knew what a 35mm SLR camera was. Thus, when UP reactivated over half their fleet of 6900's in early 1984 I wasted no time in making the pilgrimage to the Blue Mountains of Oregon where they saw regular service, post high school education be dammed! For roughly 18 months the 6900's roamed the system in all classes of road service and were usually found in the lead position account they were equipped with cab signals. Sadly, major mechanical failures and new locomotive deliveries eventually caused the remaining fleet to be placed back into storage permanently. The 6936 was the only unit retained by UP for active service in their Heritage fleet of locomotives. The remaining units were either donated to museums, stuffed and mounted in parks at random locations across the west, or were scrapped and became razor blades.
