On Monday I was lucky enough to catch the Union Pacific Heritage Locomotive #1982. painted in Missouri Pacific colors, on the lead of a train sitting idle just north of the yard in Alexandria, Louisiana. It took some creative driving to be able to find a parking spot near enough for me to walk to a location to get these shots. Despite the extreme heat it was worth the efforts to get shots of this beautiful locomotive.
One of the reasons that I had to get these photos really comes from a historical perspective because these very same tracks, that now belong to the Union Pacific, once belonged to the Missouri Pacific (and the Texas Pacific before that). So you see, this is a Mo-Pac locomotive on Mo-Pac trackage. This is a sight that has not been seen around these parts since the 1980s. A lot of railfans here in Alexandria really miss the Missouri Pacific, so I hope these images bring a smile to some of you.
From Union Pacific
When designing the Missouri Pacific ("Mo-Pac") heritage locomotive, the team concentrated on two particular time periods: the 1940s, when Mo-Pac introduced a blue, gray and white color scheme with a thin yellow accent stripe, and the 1960s, when the paint scheme was altered to a solid dark blue with the MP buzz saw logo.
The result for the MoPac heritage locomotive was a two-tone blue and white color scheme that harkens back to the streamliner days and combines the buzz saw logo and screaming eagle graphic introduced in the 1960s. The design implies both power and speed.
About 1873 a New York financier, Jay Gould, became interested in western railroads when he acquired a large block of stock in the Union Pacific Railroad. Subsequently, he purchased control of the Kansas Pacific, the Denver Pacific and the Central Pacific. Gould noted the westward expansion policy of the new Missouri Pacific Railway as a threat to his Union Pacific, and in 1879 he bought a controlling interest in the company and became its president.
In 1982, a Union Pacific-Missouri Pacific-Western Pacific merger was approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission. On January 1, 1997, Missouri Pacific Railroad legally was merged into Union Pacific Railroad, with UPRR remaining as the surviving corporation.
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