Missouri Pacific Lines: Freight Train Services and Equipment

Red Balls, tonnage trains, coal traffic and iron ore freight trains of the Missouri Pacific Lines from the 1930s to the 1980s spring vividly to life. Dorin explores the freight equipment that moved the goods, and the locomotives, both steam and diesel, that handled the freight and passenger trains. Rosters are included as well as material on the paint schemes from the blue and gray to all blue, and then the merger into Union Pacific yellow. Diesel rosters cover the period from the 1940s up through the UP merger in the 1980s.

The Missouri Pacific's mighty freight services carried a variety of materials between the Midwest and West Coast from the 1930s to the 1980s. This photohistory is divided into three sections that examine MoPac freight trains and how they operated, the variety of cars used to move the goods, and the steam and diesel locomotives that pulled the rolling stock. Images depict MoPac freight trains, including the legendary Red Balls, in action, and delineate the variety of paint schemes used by the line, from the original blue-and-gray livery, to the all-blue scheme, to the Union Pacific yellow adopted when MoPac merged with that railroad in the 1980s. Detailed treatment of the locomotives and rolling stock is sure to be of interest to Missouri Pacific fans and modelers of all lines.