Missouri Pacific

Over at the New York Central Train Layout, John R covered some work he's been doing on a pair of Bachmann Spectrum B23-7s. He was going to strip he bodies, which the prior owner had painted to suit himself, and add his own paint -- but the stripper appears to have dissolved the bodies, and he ordered replacements from Bachmann, which happened to be painted for Missouri Pacific.

I've always liked the Spectrum B23-7s, and I have an MP stashed away somewhere. Beyond that, something has always appealed to me about the MP late diesel color scheme. I never lived in MP territory. although it served New Orleans, which I've always thought is fun to visit. But without wanting to model MP or its territory, I've always found good reason to run MP diesels and equipment. MP had run-through agreements with other railroads (including UP) in the 1970s, and in 1982 it merged with UP.

UP at the time did not have a policy of patching merged power, and unrenumbered, unrepainted MP locos were common on UP, both the "classic" network and ex-MP routes, for some years. For that matter, MP lettered freight cars are still common on UP:

John R wasn't sure what to do with his MP B23-7s. I suggested he simply leave them as MP units, and he's tentatively decided to do this. They could be either running through in power pools on his PC-inspired layout or paying off horsepower hours.

From a modeler's standpoint, MP locos are fairly common, but the road name isn't among the most popular, which means MP models can sometimes be found in closeout offers. MP locos were plain vanilla, which makes detailing fairly easy, while MP blue with red and white accents was quite attractive. Over the years I've taken advantage of MP locos on sale:

One thing to keep in mind for 1970s and 80s consists is that usually the host railroad's units had to be on the point, since the radio frequencies on foreign units couldn't be changed. Thus a PC U23B is leading MP power in the photo above.

Below is an ex-MP U23B painted for UP with an MP GP38-2 still in the old paint:

MP 2120 is an Athearn RTR that was a pretty easy detail job, given the plain vanilla of MP orders:

Athearn and Atlas units don't MU well together straight from the box. UP 865 and MP 2120 have both been equipped with DCC. I was able to adjust the starting voltage on the Athearn unit to get it to run compatibly with the Atlas U23B.

Ex MP GP38-2s have been staples in the Los Angeles basin, by the way: