Union Pacific Historical Photo Gallery

Union Pacific’s historic photo collection contains more than 500,000 images. This corporate-owned collection is now available to search and explore.

The Union Pacific Museum is excited to announce new access to the photo archive. This is a living database with new materials added regularly.

Union Pacific is committed to permitting broad use and access to this collection for teaching, learning, research, and other noncommercial purposes. This database provides access to a broad range of materials. By using this database, as an individual or as an institution, you are agreeing to comply with the terms and conditions detailed here as well as to comply with all applicable rights, permissions, and copyright.

 

Searching the Union Pacific Collection

This database is fully keyword searchable, or you can explore by folder (click the folder icon to display the folder tree):

  • 19th Century Photograph Collection
  • Advertising
  • Chicago & Northwestern
  • Denver, Rio Grande & Western
  • En Route
  • Facilities
  • Military
  • Missouri Pacific
  • Missouri-Kansas-Texas
  • Passenger
  • Southern Pacific
  • Steam
  • Union Pacific
  • Western Pacific

You can also try the following searches:

  • Employee – use this term to see images containing railroad employees
  • Transcontinental – use this search to see images and documents related to the creation of the nation’s first transcontinental railroad.
  • National Park – use this search to see the more than 1000 images, and documents related to the railroad’s relationship with the National Park Service.
  • Celebrities – use this search term to explore images captured by the Union Pacific Photo Department in Los Angeles.

Trademarks

All associated trademarks, service marks, logos and design elements displayed in the database are owned by Union Pacific and may not be used except to provide attribution as specified above. Nothing contained in this database should be construed as granting, by implication or otherwise, any license or right to use any trademarks, service marks, logos, or design elements without the express written permission of Union Pacific.

Union Pacific retains copyright control of the material and images presented in the database unless the item is in the Public Domain. Accordingly, you are solely responsible for determining the copyright status of any materials you may wish to use, to investigate the owner of the copyright, and to obtain permission for your intended use. In all cases, you must cite the Union Pacific Museum as the source with the appropriate credit line provided below.

Permission to examine born-digital materials or printed copies is not an authorization to publish.

Public Domain and Fair Use

Union Pacific welcomes you to use materials in the public domain and to make fair use of copyrighted materials as defined by copyright law. All of the assets in this collection are watermarked with the Union Pacific Museum logo as unobtrusively as possible.

Public Domain: You do not need to obtain permission to use materials in the public domain. (Cornell University publishes a chart that may help you to identify what is and is not in the public domain in the United States.) 

Fair Use: The United States copyright law contains an exception for fair use of copyrighted materials, which includes the use of protected materials for certain purposes of teaching, scholarship, research, criticism, commentary, and news reporting. For guidelines on the fair use exception, please refer to the Website of the United States Copyright Office.

You are solely responsible for determining whether your use is fair and for responding to any claims that may arise from your use. By using materials from this database, you agree and warrant that your use will not violate the rights of Union Pacific or any other person or entity. If you use or reproduce our materials in any format, we ask that the Union Pacific Museum always be cited as the source of the material with the appropriate credit line found at the bottom of this page.

Commercial Use

If you wish to use any copyrighted materials or content in this database for commercial use or any purpose other than fair use as defined by law, you must request and receive prior written permission for your intended use from Union Pacific. Permission is granted on a case-by-case basis at the sole discretion of Union Pacific. Submit your request through our photo agreement form.

All publication or other public use of materials from the collection must be credited to: “Union Pacific Railroad Museum.”