I find it puzzling that apparently so few model railroaders model the Northern Pacific. This past Walthers flyer had no models from the N.P. that I found (I may have overlooked some). The Northern Pacific was a very important road, it was the second trans-continental and the original purchaser of the Northern Wheel arrangement 4-8-4 (hence the moniker “NORTHERN”). It had one of the best paint schemes on it’s passenger trains, the green Lowey color scheme. I also believe that the Northern Pacific has some of the best looking steam engines that there ever where. While I like other roads, like the Great Northern, Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, B&O, Pennsy, etc. I still wonder why the N.P. gets so little attention?
Is that really true? They seem to have a quite nice Historical Society, including many models:
http://research.nprha.org/Pages/Home.aspx
I have to admit, I don’t know any NP modelers, but I live in Western PA, which isn’t exactly NP territory! With luck, your message will shake other NP modelers out of the wood work.
Good Luck,
Greg
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The NP has been well represented through the years. PFM & NWSL imported lots of NP steam ove the years, and Walthers has done ‘Lowey’ paint scleme psassemger cars. Just because there is nothing ‘in stock’ right now does not mean much - Walthers is always releaseing ‘re-runs’ of their passemger cars. There are even laser kits of NP depots available.
Jim
I have a couple of friends and fellow modelers who take an interest in the NP. Although I know very little about the road, what I’ve seen of it seems quite interesting. And, like many other class 1 fallen flags, it has a certain appeal to modelers, both from a scenic and an operational standpoint. However, it is not surprising that, living here in the Pacific Northwest, that there would be at least some interest in the line. I can say that, from my earliest recollections as a child, I have loved that “ying and Yang” herald. I have often been intrigued as to how that herald was thought of and created; Do you know the history on that, NP2626?
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Jim, I can say that occasionally I have seen N.P. stuff offered by Walthers and others. In fact I am fairly well supplied with N.P. rolling stock; but, always looking for more. I have some N.P locomotives, some brass, others from Atlas and Stewart and P2K and even a kit bash or two. Although I mentioned a lack of N.P. models my real puzzelment, is why this road doesn’t garner the attention other roads do?
I am a member of the NPRHA and have many years of “The Mainstreeter” and have purchased books and rolling stock from this source. I don’t know where the N.P. Monad came from and would think like other embems they just appeared one day and where accepted as right.
Try being a modeler of a shortline, or class 2 like the Wheeling & Lake Erie. Now that one is hard to find material at Walthers or other stores.
The M James J Hill of the GN helpeed arrange the fincancingonad is a Korean symbol, IIRC. The NP used it to show their ties to the far east trade. It is one of the basic simple logo designs in railroading. The NP was one of the four federal land grant railroads chartered by the US congress(NP/UP/CP/KP) The charter specified a railroad from Duluth, MN ti the Pacific. Like the other land grant railroads, therewas a lot of financial wheeling/dealing and by the time the NP got free - They had a mountain of debt to service and that debt load seem always keep them one step behind the GN. When I was a teenager in the 60’s, the NP was one of the ‘cool’ roads with thier short wood cabooses and very interesting paint schemes.
Jim
It’s almost the same in N scale, though my NP fleet now outnumbers my SP&S fleet(for the time being) they outnumber the Q fleet, which outnumbers my GN fleet.
I have 2 F7A’s, 1 F3A, 1 FP7A, 1 GP9, and 1 NW2.
I’m sure I could make a decent shelf layout devoted to my NP models, I’m in the heart of NP territory. I agree, that there’s a lack of models. The SP&S, GN, adn Q could also use a beefing up in both HO and N.
Jim,
Could you clarify what your attempting to say here?
James J Hill owned the N.P. while also owning the G.N. and always attempted to merge the N.P. CB&Q and G.N. into one road. In 1970 it finally happened and became the B.N.
The little 24 foot caboose was the attraction that sinched my interest in the N.P.
Mark
That was one reason I choose to model the NP a couple decades ago. A great deal of interesting equipment, paint schemes, and operating practices. For the longest time I felt I lived in that bubble. I had to build my own dome sleepers (310 series) for the NCL. Then the Atlas company did their Kato drive RS-3 in the NP canoe scheme, and that seemed to open a few other vendors doors to the road name. Then late 1980s or early 1990s MR ran a few stories that were NP related and it suddenly seemed like there were NP modelers everywhere. NP is no longer my modeling choice (although I did buy a Sunset Z6 about a year ago…), so I’ve not noticed the lack of equipment. I do think that the Walther’s Lowey scheme is a bit off the dark green isn’t dark enough and the light green is too dark. I think the Rapido cars are closer to the proper color (oh yeah I bought one of those the other day too)…
True, you don’t see or hear much about the NP. But I for one, have both Steam and Diesel. Freight and Passenger.
Since I just joined today. I hope to share some pictures later.
Unfortunately, a year ago. My “4 Aces” hit the floor, at the Anaheim Convention Center. A drop of 36+ inches to hard concret didn’t do it any good. 
NP… I feel your pain. The Pere Marquette is also a Class 1 with some very notable history attached to it. Alas… way less models available for this carrier than the NP. And to boot, hardly anyone pronounces the name right! I bet you dont run into that problem with the NP!
For the record: its pronounced “pair mar kett” NOT “pee air mark it” (its such an unknown line folks dont know its roadname is actually french, not english).
I feel guilty…I always pronounced it “Purr Markett” [:$]
The truth is very few railroads are covered or modeled greatly.
At the top are PRR and ATSF. Generally lots of stuff all the time for these.
Then you have the second tier of NYC, SP, UP, and B&O plus D&RGW for the narrow gauge. Usually stuff for these is around.
Then it’s hit or miss and you need to be ready when something comes on the market. Of course you’ll have to decide if that AT&SF Consolidation painted Northern Pacific will do it for you or not.
Of course there is always kitbashing, RTR bashing, and scratch building.
Enjoy
Paul
Jimmy, no need to feel guilty… in actuallity your not far off. Because of the recieverships and mishandling by its owners, the PM (back in its early days) had the nickname of the “Poor Marquette”.
I model the NP in the early 1950s and find that there is a fair amount of HO equipment lettered for NP if one is not a “purist” and is willing to use generic equipment that won’t get past any “rivit counters”. Since I can’t afford a fleet of brass NP steam, I have a few brass ‘photo props’ and operate plastic Bachmann, Broadway Limited, Genesis, Proto 2000 steam locomotives with NP decals. Lots of generic stock cars lettered for NP, but I haven’t got around to building the proper Central Valley cars with the round roof. Similarly, many dozens of Accurail, Branch Line, Athearn box cars and not one with an accurate round roof. I’ve only built one of the laser kit NP cabooses (who has time to build a fleet of them when building a layout), so train show Athearn cabeese, rattle can paint and decals to the rescue until I get around to building more of the accurate cabeese.
Why is Norhtern Pacific not more popular, despite lots of great history and attributes? I think it is a lack of exposure, primarily for two major reasons: 1) NP is a ‘fallen flag’ that hasn’t existed for over 44 years; and 2) the NP’s territory was sparcely populated so comparitively few people living today have witnessed the real NP in action.
Kit bashing and scratch building accurate equipment for any prototype railroad can be a hobby in itself, but it is not very practical when building a layout that needs a large fleet of cars to operate. Given the lack of standardization, especially in the age of steam, it is very hard for manufacturers to individualze equipment for very many of the hundreds of ‘fallen flags’. For modern equipment, there is much more standardization and very few Class I roads (the shortline modelers, however, still need to do a lot of their own paint and decals).
Grinnell
I think part of the problem is the location … as pointed out, it is rather sparsely populated area. Had it terminated in Chicago on the east end, it may have made a big difference. I didn’t know much about NP until I was hired by BN to dispatch the Yellowstone Division in 1979. ---- One thing about NP, the old saying was that there was an NP car in every train. The boxcars seemed to show up everywhere.
You are suffering the same symptoms that many of us have … those of us who don’t model Santa Fe or Pennsylvania, etc. I normally model freelance so that I can do pretty much what I want with what’s available. I do not have the bucks for brass or the high-end die-cast engines.
Lots of luck to you.
Skip Luke
Retired Railroader
I think we’ve sort of lost the point of my original post. I am able to find most everything I need to model the N.P. I was wondering why the road doesn’t seem to be very popular given it’s historical significance. Certainly the Minneapolis St. Paul area is not a sparesly populated area. Nor is the Seattle/Tacoma area. To me, a high draw to the N.P. is that it runs through some very beautiful country side.
There is a certain sort of “parallelism” between the GN and the NP- they were built across similar terrain and were primarily farm-service roads in the northwestern US. I know that the two railroad historical associations (GN and NP)merged their “databases”, so to speak, several years ago, which helps those of us who like to model northwest railroads- check the GN Goat, etc… The Spokane road was owned by GN and I think that many GN modelers, such as myself, would enjoy a bit of NP color in their rolling stock and motive power rosters- I have an active modeling interest in the NP, manifested by several box cars.
Cedarwoodron
OK, they are not sparsely populated, but also not in the top 20 cities for population: Seattle 22nd, Portland 28th, Minneapolis is 47th. For perspective, in the 2010 census Seattle had a population of only 608,660 people (vs. 8.2 million for New York, 3.8 million for LA, 2.7 million for Chicago, 2.1 million for Houston and 1.5 million for Philadelphia). Not a big market for a model manufacturer or for a fan base
Basically NP served forest, farm and mineral producer areas not consumer centers with large populations. Their traffic pattern was predominantly loads eastbound and empties westbound.
Grinnell