Life Between the Rails oral history project, 1940-2025

This collection contains oral history interviews with Union Pacific Railroad employees and their family members, documenting experiences from the 1950s to 2020s. The interviews cover a wide range of railroad jobs including locomotive engineers, conductors, maintenance workers, clerks, dispatchers, surveyors, and union officials. The collection covers Union Pacific operations across the western United States and beyond, with particular attention to women workers and members of underrepresented communities.

The interviews document major changes in railroad technology and operations, from steam locomotives to diesel, manual systems to computerized operations, and the elimination of cabooses. Topics include workplace culture, safety practices, labor strikes, corporate mergers, discrimination experiences, and the impact of technological changes on railroad employment. Many interviews feature multi-generational railroad families and capture significant historical events including World War II service and experiences of racial and gender discrimination. The collection includes audio and video files of project oral history interviews, as well as a historical 1979 audio recording by University of Wyoming student Vanita Fowden.

Supplementary materials include autobiographical writings, photographs, and stories of relatives who worked for Union Pacific. The materials provide documentation of Union Pacific's operational history, labor relations, and community impact across more than seven decades.