Missouri Pacific Eagle

[Sokramiketes]

The MTL five pack of heavyweight Missouri Pacific cars sent me on a tangent. I’d like to model a Colorado Eagle, and like the idea of including the Thrift-T-Sleepers.

The available Centralia Car Shops sleepers in Eagle colors are sort of my starting point on what the correct colors should be. So I’m trying to color correct the MTL cars to match. At least in the hall park.

The blue is going to be hard to darken without screwing up the lettering. So I’m concentrating on the warm gray window band and a darker gray roof. Tamiya makes two great colors in their aircraft line so you can knock this out in about 10 mins a car. Disassemble, mask, and spray.

EDIT: Keep reading below about roof color, correct Tamiya shades are AS-7 (roof) and AS-16(window band)

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[Sokramiketes]

Someone who knows Missouri Pacific can probably chime in with other appropriate cars. But here’s what seems to be out there:

WoT heavyweight baggage (T&P released in Eagle colors. Very close to MP baggage cars)
Centralia 6-6-4’s
Centralia 10-5 (PRR sleeper in Eagle paint)
MTL Thrift T Sleeper(s)
RailSmith coaches (pending release)

Looks like Union Station will have some of the specialty cars with distinctive portholes.

Here’s why the colors on the heavyweights need to shift:

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[squirrelhunter]

You are taking on a tough task, there are no MP eagle passenger car decals made in N. Russell Higginbotham (Red River Models) made some on a on demand basis, but I sadly didn't grab any before he passed away. You could probably re use striping from the Microscale set for the eagle diesels, but lettering will be a custom job.

The other non Con Cor factory painted car you missed is the Walthers smooth side coach.

The other killer for MP trains in any scale is everything that wasn't a head end car, a rebuit heavyweight, a sleeper or secondhand had porthole windows for things like the washrooms, kitchens or dorm space. So to go exactly correct you will need to use car sides like Union Station Products or kitbash existing cars. Even the HO guys get hung up on this.

You have found the color issue already, but I think your solution is good. I just wish manufacturers would stop using the same gray on the sides and roof, the sides were more or a cream color, the roofs were gray. I'll do a 2nd post on the Colorado Eagle consist.

[squirrelhunter]

First off, if you have a copy of Greg Stout's "Route of the Eagles: Missouri Pacific in the streamline era", or can borrow one, it will be a big help. It has a chapter on the Colorado Eagle specifically and is the primary source for what I'm about to post.  Patrick Dorin's book "Missouri Pacific Passenger Trains- The Postwar Years" is also a good resource for photos of equipment.

The original 1942 Colorado Eagle cars were 2 sets built by Budd with each train having a baggage, a baggage/mail, a dorm coach, a 56 seat coach, and a diner. MP got 4 6-6-4 sleepers from PS to round out the trains. The Budd cars are similar to the Kato cars used in their corrugated 4 car packs and for the Silver Streak Zephyr.

Starting in 1948, MP got 3 copies of the CZ dome coaches from Budd for use on the Colorado Eagle and eventually the orginal Budd cars were mixed into the general pool with the big order of ACF cars built for the Texas Eagles.

The 8-1-3 Thrift-T-Sleepers came on in 1958 until bumped by 6-6-4's in 1960. Around this time the train was probably using 10-6's or 14-4's for the primary St. Louis-Denver sleepers.

Mortive power was orginally A-B sets or E6's, but then became whatever set of E's or PA's from the MP's passenger power pool. BLI has made all of these, but for some reason they used the single headlight version of their E6 (MP's had the 2nd headlight position added pretty soon after delivery) and the dynamic brake equipped version of their PA shell (MP didn't get dynamics on any power until 1976). Not the end of the world,  just odd...

[Sokramiketes]

Oh man, Russ passed away?  I missed that somehow.

Thanks for the book recommendation.  I was paging through the color guide last night looking at options.  The Kato corrugated diner (pre-war Budd) is workable, and you can get some prototype looking Eagle cars together but the train really does need some portholed equipment to run it home. 

Time for some modeling. 

[squirrelhunter]

Yep, he passed away last summer I believe, some folks were at the last 2 Plano train shows selling items from his estate.

After looking at stuff again, you could use the follwing Kato cars pretty much as is with a paint job: the Budd corrugated baggage, Budd corrguated baggage/RPO and the CZ dome coach, the Centralia 6-6-4, and the MTL sleepers. The Kato Budd pre war diner looks right except for the porthole kitchen windows. MP got the PS corrugated coaches that Railsmith is doing from Maine Central in 1959 or 60, so you could use one of those as is.

[peteski]

You are taking on a tough task, there are no MP eagle passenger car decals made in N. Russell Higginbotham (Red River Models) made some on a on demand basis, but I sadly didn't grab any before he passed away.

Simple white color lettering?  RR Roman typeface? Those could easily be printed using whte ink on Alps printer.

[squirrelhunter]

The prototype is metallic, aluminum if I recall. The MTL car lettering is a metallic gray, it has a shine to it.

Also MP used a slightly stretched and fairly thin variation of Railroad Roman, if you print at actual scale (the main lettering is either 14" or 12" high, don't have a diagram to hand) the thin parts of the letters are barely there. Even Atlas ran into this on their factory printed MP blue and gray GP7- look at the roadname under magnification. One way to deal with this is to print the letters slightly over size.

I've had some custom decals done by Circus City and they are very nice, but they had to bump them up a bit in size to print well and they can't do metallic colors on their printer. Can an ALPS do metallic colors? I thought that was something you need screen printing for?

Also, this is why I was so upset MTL didn't do any of the 36 named 10-1-2 pullmans MP had in the 5 car set. Their pad printing capability is excellent and they were able to print all the little lettering clearly.

[peteski]

Yes, Alps can print both, metallic (matte metallic), and foil (reflective metallic) colors. But I imagine in this example, the lettering would be the same as on the other models which would not be repainted. As for the exact letter shapes, if the differences would be noticeable in such small scale, programs like Corel Draw or or Adobe Illustrator are capable of modifying shapes of letters.  That would make the artwork design a bit more time consuming, but possible.

[Sokramiketes]

Also, this is why I was so upset MTL didn't do any of the 36 named 10-1-2 pullmans MP had in the 5 car set. Their pad printing capability is excellent and they were able to print all the little lettering clearly.

MTL didn't pad print these.  They painted the carbodies silver, then used their direct to substrate printer to print the rest.  The lettering actually looks like they printed the blue around and let the silver show through.  It also makes the blue brighter and metallic looking, unfortunately.

Is the Pullman oversize on the MTL paint job?  It looks pretty big to my eye. 

[thomasjmdavis]

MTL didn't pad print these.  They painted the carbodies silver, then used their direct to substrate printer to print the rest.  The lettering actually looks like they printed the blue around and let the silver show through.  It also makes the blue brighter and metallic looking, unfortunately.

Is the Pullman oversize on the MTL paint job?  It looks pretty big to my eye.

The 'Pullman' on Thrift T sleepers is pretty big.  The cars (plan 4090, 8-3-1, per Jerry Laboda's old website) are, of course, a different prototype than the MTL 10-1-2s, so hard to say for sure on the size- but I think the MTL looks close.  The prototype shows the "ULLMA" as sitting over 3 window sets, with the P and N overhanging-
Here's a Thrift T sleeper: http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3492887

[peteski]

MTL didn't pad print these.  They painted the carbodies silver, then used their direct to substrate printer to print the rest.  The lettering actually looks like they printed the blue around and let the silver show through.  It also makes the blue brighter and metallic looking, unfortunately.

Yes, MTL has almost totally eliminated Tampo pad printing for decorating their models.  Most of it (including the entire yellow billboard reefer sides) is done on an ink jet printer. If you look at it under magnification, you can see that the colors are composed of tiny dots of multiple color inks (just like a any home ink jet printer). I can actually tell by lookign with my bare eyes (must have microscope-eyes). 

This development is both a blessing, and a curse.   Blessing, because they can do all sorts of fancy paint schemes, weathering and graffiti (which those printers excel in), without the price of a model being based on how many Tampo color hits the model needed. It also greatly streamlines the production.  They can send the computer-designed artwork straight to the printer, without needing to etch Tampo plates and custom mix inks.  It is also a curse, because   the results sometimes are not as good as using Tanmpo printing.

They still do use Tampo printing for some very small lettering, but since their printers are getting better and better (I think they are on a 3rd or 4th generation of printers), they might eventually print everything using the ink jets.

[Sokramiketes]

I ordered a can of AS-7 Tamiya gray, and it's even better for the roofs.  Slightly darker, and a touch warmer. 

Decals, it does look like Microscale did eagle scheme for passenger units that includes the Missouri Pacific in silver.  And the MP/T&P express boxcar sheet has some other pieces that will work, including good stripes. 

But, yes, a full sheet of specific passenger decals would be welcome.  Maybe we can make that happen. 

[Sokramiketes]

Still dinking around with the MTL car.

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[mopacaustin]

Looking good! Thanks for this thread, planning to do one of the Eagles someday