The value of the UP depends upon two things: your group think and how early the dividend cards comes up.

Our group has taken to getting lots of UP early. That means that, in a 4 player game, most of the UP is gone after about 6 or 7 turns, as people are trading in some of their initial shares for UP shares. In our most recent game, there were many times where I had to decide between turning in a share of something that I might want vs. maintaining my lead in the UP race. Based on other experiences, I think that we may be valuing the UP too highly (for example, I took a UP share on every turn, so I had first place with 7).

Another factor in the UP value is the timing of the 2nd dividend card. In the 3 or 4 games I played prior to our most recent one, the 2nd dividend card came out early, and many folks were caught without having their UP shares down. Thus, everyone in our group now plays UP shares as soon as it's feasible (I'm the only one who bothers to keep in mind the makeup of the deck, thereby knowing that only one dividend card can come out in the first 25 cards). In addition, the rest of the dividend cards came out early, increasing the value of the UP relative to the value of the other rails.

In our most recent game, all the dividend cards came out late, thus devaluing the UP relative to the other rails. Because I had sacrificed some other rails to lock up the UP first place, I ended up in 2nd place by $3k ($126k to $129k). The winning player had a second place in the UP, and held more other rail positions than any of the rest of us.