Looking at this month’s MR I am impressed by how many fine Union Pacific models there are available these days. This is truly a great time to model the Union Pacific. There are turbines, diesels, steam from several manufacturers and numerous passenger cars available.
I grew up in Las Vegas and was around the Union Pacific since a young child. My parents used to put me on a UP streamliner every summer to visit my grandparents. Went to school in Utah and used to go to the yards to watch all the UP trains being made. I love the Union Pacific. One could have a really nice model of the Las Vegas yards in the 1950’s.
So what do I model? The Tonopah and Tidewater[:(]
Now if someone comes out with a model of the Las Vegas UP depot then…
Yes I agree, there are a lot of great modeling opportunities with new UP products. I model the D&RGW when UP took over (1989).
I also just got the new Athearn Veranda for my excursion passenger train. Beautiful looking and great running locomotive. I absolutely love the sound of the whining turbine. I have the QSI decoder and two 1.2" speakers. An LED conversion was also done.
The turbines are particularly neat. When I was in college UP in 1973, they had several of them in the yard in SLC just sitting there derelict. I studied them extensively inside and out. Back then no one cared if you climbed inside a derelict locomotive. I am sure they were soon scrapped. - Nevin
One could get the impression, that there are only few railroads operating in the US. The model market is dominated by UP, PRR and SP, at least when you are in the steam era. MTH is throwing in the Little Joes and Bi-Polars, for those few modelers, who string wires above their rails.
There is a definite lack of those bread-and-butter locos that roamed the nation before the advent of those giants on rails. Formerly, this gap was bridged by numerous importers of brass locos, but today, there is only Overland Models and Sunset Models left.
You are right, I didn’t mention that these are all BIG UP engines. It would be wonderful if we had more choice in small standard steam engines in HO. Big need for 0-6-0s, 4-6-0s, 2-8-0s and 4-6-2s. They could even be UP or SP for all I care. Harrimans would be nice.
You UP fans owe it to yourselves to get one of these if you are interested in the era which saw the experimentation with turbines come to an end. The UP U50s were a response to the turnbine failure as bunker fuel costs rose.
I spent part of yesterday researching these big boys after my online hobby shop sent me an email update about the Athearn release.
Here is a link to a great photo of a UP U50 with another unusual loco mu’d…the DD35.
