This black 39' Single Dome Tank Car has white stenciling and runs on black Bettendorf trucks. As America's first transcontinental railroad, the U.P. was a major factor in taming the West and is the largest railroad in the US. The Union Pacific's route map covers most of the central and western United States, westward of Chicago and New Orleans. It has achieved this size thanks to purchasing a large number of other railroads; notable purchases include the Missouri Pacific, Chicago and North Western, Western Pacific, Missouri-Kansas-Texas, and Southern Pacific (which itself was purchased by the Rio Grande before UP purchased it).