Last night I watched "The Iron Horse". It is a silent film from 1924 about the Transcontinental Railroad. The loco they used for the Golden Spike ceremony was UP #116. In the words on screen, it said the real Jupiter and 116 were used for the on-screen reenactment.
I wondered about that since I knew it was 119 at the ceremony. I did a search for 116 and found that it was originally slated to be at the ceremony. It seems like I had heard that before quite some time ago.
I just found that 119 was scrapped in 1903. That expalins why the 1924 movie had to use 116.
It was Bachmann's Jupiter and 119 that got me into HO model railroading in the late 80's. My Dad had an O27 layout in the 50's when I was a wee lad so liking trains came naturally.
https://collections.boxeldermuseum.org/index.php/Detail/objects/1435 (https://collections.boxeldermuseum.org/index.php/Detail/objects/1435)
Interesting! When I was a wee lad, it was my older brothers who were into model railroading. It was 4 of us to 1 bedroom and the train layout was under one of the bunk beds. They had those steam locomotives (I was able to hang on two of them). I got a Tonka truck for Christmas, and I went Tonka crazy every Christmas after that. As I got older, I found my fascination was with diesels, and steamer's I had no interest in. It's ironic how at some point our brains latch onto such things, like you did for steam loco's, I did for diesel locos, and my kids playstation. :)
Back then, I just viewed diesels as powered box cars with no moving parts.
For anybody interested Utah Rails has the entire Union Pacific steam locomotive roster online.
https://utahrails.net/up/up-locomotive-chronology-1862-1914.php
This site is a wonderful resource for anybody interested in either the Union Pacific, or railroading in Utah. the main page is at:
https://utahrails.net/index.php
Personally, I find pre ww1 railroading fascinating, but difficult to model, as the locomotives do not perform well on my mountain railroad.
Good stuff. In 1903, it talks about selling 2 Shays but nothing says when they bought them. In 1907 they bought one Shay.
"The sale of OSL lines south of Salt Lake City to the San Pedro Los Angeles & Salt Lake in 1903 included the sale of 17 OSL locomotives, including 15 rod locomotives for mainline use and the two Shay locomotives for switching at Tintic."
These were used in the Tintic mining district west of Provo. From the same site here is more on this operation:
https://utahrails.net/up-steam-roster/up-shays.php
The sale you mentioned wasn't so much of a sale as a transfer between UP subsidiaries. The UP had bought a 50% stake in the SPLA&SL in 1902. A third Shay was added in 1907.
More on those UP shays including photos:
https://www.shaylocomotives.com/data/searchdataframe.htm
Search the Shay database for serial numbers 511, 674 and 1812.