The Paint Shop

Large rooftop air make-up units maintain a minimum temperature of 70 degrees in the paint booth area for proper paint application and curing.

UP employees at the locomotive paint facility at the Jenks Shop complex apply thousands of gallons of armour yellow, red and gray paint each day.

America's largest railroad system operates in weather extremes from heavy snow and ice in the mountains of the Northwest and California to the parched deserts of the Southwest, to the windy Great Plains, to the bayous of Texas and Louisiana--24 hours a day, every day of the year. In delivering customers' freight, a locomotive often travels through three or four "seasons" on a single cross-country trip.

The paint shop has two primary structures housing three bays. The first bay is for stripping and cleaning. Locomotives are prepared and masked for painting in the center bay, and the actual painting takes place in the third bay, which is equipped with a 90-foot-long, semi-downdraft paint booth.

The paint shop was designed to meet the safety requirements of all associated state and federal regulatory agencies.