Talk:Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad)

Merge?

This article is extremely short. Also the Overland Route is essentially the modern name of the First Transcontinental Railroad, although there have been some refinements over the years. Might it be better to redirect this article to First Transcontinental Railroad and have lead mention that today the route is known as the overland route? Or should the articles be kept separate and this be expanded to include the refinements (such as the Lucin Cutoff)? Dave (talk) 06:25, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

OPPOSE: While the tracks and rights of way of the now considerably modified Overland Route (as it developed over/from the original grade of the Pacific Railroad opened in 1869) between Omaha and Sacramento currently belong to the Union Pacific, the western part of the Overland was owned and/or leased and operated at most times by the Central Pacific Railroad and/or Southern Pacific Railroad. No regularly scheduled passenger train has operated between Chicago and San Francisco bearing the name "Overland" since January 2, 1963, with the last running of the "Overland Limited" jointly operated by the UP and SP. (The only current passenger rail service between Chicago and Oakland is AMTRAK's daily "California Zephyr.") Centpacrr (talk) 08:54, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

All of the above is already covered in the First Transcontinental Railroad article. Perhaps I didn't state it well, but this is the reason why I think it should be merged. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to develop this article and not have it be redundant to the other. The only way would be to limit the scope of the transcontinental article to only the construction and dedication of the line, then move the "more recent" content to this article. Is that what you are proposing? If so, yeah, I think that could work.

In it's current state, this article is 100% redundant to the transcontinental railroad article, and contradicted by its only source. (the external link shows the overland route extending to California as far back as 1915, yet the text says the name wasn't in use for the western half until the acquisition, 1996.) One final point, the California Zephyr isn't relevant to the topic at hand, until the 1980s it had nothing to do with the overland route.Dave (talk) 09:46, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I have a new book coming out this March called "The Classic Western American Railroad Routes" (Chartwell Books, 320 pages, illus) in which I wrote a chapter called "The Overland Route" so I am pretty much up on this topic right now. (My other book on the Pacific Railroad is "Riding the Transcontinental Rails: Overland Travel on the Pacific Railroad 1865-1881" (Polyglot Press, 420 pages) which was published in 2005.) I'll take a crack at fleshing out this article a bit when I get a chance. Also the only reason I mentioned the current AMTRAK "California Zephyr" is to point out that this is the only through passenger rail service between Chicago and Oakland/San Francisco via Omaha currently running although it goes through Denver and Salt Lake City as opposed to through Ogden and Wyoming before eventually rejoining the largely unchanged original CPRR grade in Nevada and California used by the various historic Overland services. Centpacrr (talk) 02:36, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Looking at your expansion, it looks like the direction you think this should be taken is the article Overland Route should focus on the passenger rail operations, while the First Transcontinental Railroad should focus on the rail line itself. If that's the case, I agree that is a valid approach and would support keeping the two articles separate. However, if that is the direction we want to go, I think the First Transcontinental Railroad article should be pruned, once the expansion on this article is complete. Thanks for the expansion, it looks good. Dave (talk) 23:01, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I am not quite done with the expansion which will probably take a few days to polish up and then we will see where we are. My great great grandfather, Lewis M. Clement was Chief Assistant Engineer and Superintendent of Track of the CPRR between 1862 and 1881 and was the chief locating and resident engineer for the location, design, and construction of the CPRR's original Sierra Grade with primary charge of the section between Colfax and Truckee. Centpacrr (talk) 02:34, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I like the separation of the two ideas - I think it is a good idea to have a a separate outlet for discussing the line history after 1869 without cluttering the aleady heavy First Transcontinental Railroad which should rightfully concentrate on the construction of the line. I like the expansion of the Overland Route article, but it needs more wikilinks - in just a cursory glance I saw 8 or 9 terms that should link to their own article (or should have an article added if they don't have one) - I will try to help out. CosmicPenguin (talk• WP:WYO^Help!) 03:26, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for chiming in. Although only 3 people have chimed in, it sounds like a consensus is forming to have two articles, but to expand this article and prune the FTR article to remove modern and passenger rail history, which would go over here. I'll sign up to do the pruning, as I've wanted to do that for some time anyways. I also am a great-grandson of a worker on the FTR (the UP half). I'm trying to get a copy of a picture of the original 1000-mile tree, (the one currently there is a replacement tree) that was in my family's possession to add to the article. However, so far I've not been able to locate it.Dave (talk) 03:41, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I've added two images — an 1878 engraving of the Thousand Mile Tree (in case Dave can't find his) and of the West portal of Tunnel #6) — as well as the final paragraph of the description of the CP/SP section of the grade that I had neglected to include earlier. I will add some more images over the next few days. Centpacrr (talk) 05:14, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Added more images, Wikilinks, and text. Centpacrr (talk) 01:53, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Relationship between this article and the Overland Flyer Article

In their current state, these two articles overlap. I tagged both articles with a merge tag. However, I'm not 100% convinced merging is the correct solution. It was more to draw attention to this redundancy. One solution is to move all content about the defunct train to the Overland Flyer article, and have the Overland Route article focus on the route of the train. Thoughts? Dave (talk) 21:14, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Humm, despite significant activity on one of the two articles, nobody has opined on this. I'll try to start work on a merger/re-org this week. Please discuss any objections here, rather than reverting, as this does need addresing in some fashion. Dave (talk) 18:50, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

The Overland Flyer name was only used for three years (1887-1890) before being changed to Overland Limited. I'm not sure I see a need for a Flyer article at all ... just a reference (which is already there) in the Overland Route article that the train was called that for a brief time at the beginning of its operations. Centpacrr (talk) 19:50, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

As it stands, the "Overland Flyer" article clearly doesn't deserve to exist as a separate article. Like Dave said: one article on the Overland train service (in which the "Overland Flyer" will rate a sentence), and another article on the route. Or just one article, but in any case no need for an article just on the Flyer. Tim Zukas (talk) 20:59, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I think a single article describing both the route and the Overland Limited (as the Overland Route article is now) is best with both "Overland Flyer" and "Overland Limited" as links that forward to it. Centpacrr (talk) 21:14, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. What I'll do is fuse the pics, templates and useful content from the Overland Flyer article into this one. Taking a preliminary look at it, it will fuse pretty well, but will require a significant rewrite of the lead section. As most of my historical knowledge of the UP is passed down from my relatives (i.e. mostly true, but embellished =-) ), and so I could use a review and correction when finished. Dave (talk) 23:03, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

There's stab one. Feel free to fix anything that isn't up to snuf. Dave (talk) 01:40, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to revisit this. In the last few years articles on individual named trains have become more common, and I'm confident that there are enough sources to write a standalone article on the Overland Limited (UP train), which would also cover the Overland Flyer. I think it's confusing to commingle the history of a single train with that of a route which hosted several. Mackensen (talk) 22:44, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree that in theory, there should be separate articles, one on the route, and one on the passenger train. The issue before was lack of content on the article for the passenger train (IIRC it was essentially a stub with some pictures and timelines). Another issue that also needs to be addressed, is by removing the content about the passenger train from this article we are going to have an article about the Overland Route, and another about the First Transcontinental Railroad. There already is a lot of overlap between the two articles in their current state, and that could get even worse. There should be some delineation of what content belongs in which article. I would propose:

• First Transcontinental Railroad - Focuses primarily on the history leading up to the construction and the construction of the line.
• Overland Route - Focuses on the post construction history, mergers, acquisitions, etc. as well as the portions of the route that are not part of the First Transcontinental Railroad (i.e. East of Omaha, and possibly west of Sacramento)
• Overland Limited - Focuses on the passenger train, not the route.

That's My $.02 Dave (talk) 05:37, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, I've now created the standalone article. Comments welcomed. Mackensen (talk) 17:46, 30 August 2014 (UTC)