Look at that perfectly ballasted, perfectly neat, and flawless track work. Those were the days!

https://tycotrain.tripod.com/bachmannhoscalelocomotives/id74.html

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/bq237-by-bachman-12214421

Back to original topic. Quentin, follow the examples I put up for stand-in Missouri pacific steam engines and you can build quite a roundhouse-full of acceptable locomotives for that road. Accurate MP steam engine decals can be had from the Missouri Pacific historical society.

Bachmann engines aren't the only ones I have. I have four other mikados by another vendor, plus a couple of Bachmann 10 wheelers lettered for the MP that I did not even mention, so I believe I have about 15 or 16 MP steam engines in my Roundhouse... quite likely one of the larger MP steam rosters in the model railroad world.

In addition, I have MP diesel power consisting of 4 GP7's and an A B A set of F units... though they only run on other layouts.

I have a few steam engines for other roads too, like the Frisco, KCS and the Rock Island, my only requirement being that they ran in the ArkLaTex region. A Cotton Belt steamer is planned.

I haven't touched on my steam engines for southern roads east of the Mississippi.

I'm pretty sure this is it

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_BQ23-7

The B29 nose is a quirk of memory.  It's been so long since I saw it.  I do remember it being SCL now.

No. It was a road switcher with four wheel trucks from maybe the late 60s, certainly the 1970s. I was given a model of it in the early 80s when I begin to think about a layout and talked about it some. Couple or three people gave me models, diesels, and this very unusual road switcher was one of them. Think B 29 or B 36 faceted glass nose. That's what the front of this locomotive looked like. It was the weirdest looking thing I've ever seen on rails. 

I never unboxed any of them. Really should have. I didn't understand that I could've had a 2x8 switching layout using the three or so road switchers I had. I had that peculiar locomotive, an Athearn SD9, and  an S2 and RS2 or something by Atlas. Plus a dozen  or so freight cars that had survived 20 years in the attic.  All burned up in a fire.

My model might have been a bachmann.  It's probably 30 yr since I last saw it.  It was Chessie.  Never ran it, it was a gift.  No space for layout back then.  I think it was an EMD engine.  Can't remember for certain.

No one knows yet what the diesel was with the B–29 cockpit for a cab? I had a model of it years and years ago, was lost in a house fire.

I saw those KCS shovel noses on a trip to New Orleans as a kid.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_MRS-1

"Military Road Switcher". Haha. I like it.  A great idea too late for practical use.  Homely, I have to say.

About the truly most homely diesel I ever saw, I can't remember the name of.  It looked like a GP7 but instead of a short hood it had a cab that looked like the faceted glass nose of a B-29.  Someone knowledgeable remind me what it was.

I don't pay much attention to diesels.  Easy to miss.  Diesels make modeling less than popular roads pretty easy. Standardized models for only a couple of manufacturers, as opposed to the many customized steam engines over the years. Diesel modelers might well say that there's lots of variation in hatches and fans and stuff like that, and that's true, of course, but the generalized profile all these engines makes it quite easy to superficially model just about any railroad you're interested in. Since I don't follow diesels, I don't know, but the Santa Fe CF7 was a real odd duck, and I'm not sure if anyone has ever made a model of it.

Unfortunately, for model railroaders like me who follow less popular roads like the MP, Bachmann is in the Model Railroad business to make money, not to grant the every wish of me and everyone else like me.

The models offered by Bachmann, and just about every other vendor, seem to be prototypes from roads that serve the most major major population centers, essentially the metropolitan Northeast and Chicago. This makes sense, because that's where the most people interested in model railroading are going to be concentrated, not in small towns and small regional cities throughout the country. There's only a couple of Bachmann models defying this logic, which are the mogul, based on a engine from a 100 mile long midwestern short line, and a Wisconsin central diesel, from a relatively small regional carrier, not well known outside it's immediate area. 

Fortunately, for Missouri pacific steam modelers like me, over the years Bachmann has offered several engines that, while not precise molecular correct models, are very reasonable stand-ins that have made me happy for a very long time.

1. The spectrum consolidation, while a little heavy for a Missouri Pacific 2-8–0, has overall lines and details very Missouri Pacific like. I have four of these engines lettered as the imaginary MP 180 class, right above the MP spot class engines numbered 1–173.

2. The spectrum consolidation was offered as Missouri Pacific 92 many years ago. It appears from time to time on eBay and I finally got one about two years ago. It's very cleanly and prototypically lettered. It's a little heavy for a spot class engine, but again, who cares. A very accurate brass model of a spot class was offered many years ago, but they run like coffee grinders, and are unusable for any kind of operation or anything at all other than a mantel piece placeholder. On the other hand. Bachmann steam engines run like clocks once the DCC CV settings are correctly.

3. The Bachmann USRA mikado is almost dead on for an MP 1300 class. I have one done up as the 1304, with multiple added MP specific details, such as an oil bunker for the tender, number boards by the stack, and a hinged stack cover.

4. Bachmann offered a USRA light 4-8-2 years ago, dead on for the MP 5300 class as-built and before their heavy rebuilds in the late 1930s. Bachmann's MP model is very beautifully lettered. A purist could argue that the numerals on the cab side are a little big, but who care, I don't. It's a beautiful engine that took me a very long time to locate.

5. Bachmann also offered a Spectrum light USRA 2-10-2 back in the days of yore.  There were several variations for different prototypes, and the Seaboard Air Line one was very close to some of the MP 1700 class engines, including a Boxpok center driver acquired by some during shoppings. I bought one to repaint for the MP, but my Gulf Coast friend cried out, how can you paint over something that says "through the heart of Dixie" on the cab?  So I never did, and it is still in my roundhouse as a Seaboard engine, although really too large to run my branch line.

6. The Russian decapod is an incredible offering. The Bachmann one is in its second run now. I've loved those engines ever since I saw a photograph of an MP one way back when I was a teenager, switching in the Anchorage, Louisiana yard across the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge.  The MP engines vary  some from the Bachmann model, especially the running board configuration, but I don't care. The 8 MP decapods were numbered from 941 to 948. I've lettered two of mine as imaginary MP 940 and 949, just outside of MPs numbers as if they could've been a couple of extra engines.  I have five other decapods operating on layout, but the MP ones are my favorites.

Some might argue otherwise, but for someone who is modeling a marginally popular railroad, I feel like I've been showered with riches untold.

Yes.  I'm not familiar with that locomotive, but many of the Bachmann tenders seem to be a little lightweight as well.

Speaking of the Nickel Plate Berk, I have occasionally thought of getting one and trying to modify it to a Missouri Pacific 1900 class, the ones that were converted to 4–8-4's during World War Two. Five of them survived as built on the International-great northern down in Texas, but according to an account written by an engineman, they were rough riders, and not well liked by the crews. 

Clean all the wheels.  And thoroughly clean the little phosphor bronze tender truck wipers.  Remove them and thoroughly rub clean with a pencil eraser or something similar.

The wheels, both locomotive and tender, may be made of some alloy that oxidizes heavily fairly quickly.  Moisten a paper towel, very lightly with some goo gone.  Run the tender back-and-forth on that and onto the dry part of the towel, pushing it from side to side to make sure you get the flanges also.  And marvel at how much black crud comes off on the towel. Then, another piece of lightly moistened towel, put it in front of the locomotive on the track and slowly run the engine up on the towel until all the drivers are on it. Then spin the wheels, pressing lightly from side to side and lightly down on the wheels, but not enough to stall the engine. And again, be amazed at how dirty those wheels were. I wouldn't be surprised that if you do this cleaning, it'll solve your problems.

We are talking about a Rivarossi locomotive, but all of the above applies to Bachmann steam engines as well.  Diesels, don't know.I don't have them, and never will.

One thing to remember about model Southern Pacific moguls is that over many long years since the 1960s, there's almost continuously been some HO scale version of it offered. IHC did the last one in the 90s or so but it was a continuation of a fairly crude one offered earlier in the 80s by somebody else. There are lots of them on eBay at any time, but the many crude details and the huge flanges that won't run or anything else except code 100 rail make it not very desirable for anyone really except the train set bunch.

So, I believe there's an opening here for Bachmann to produce a very salable model steam engine. The Southern Pacific was the Pennsylvania railroad of the west coast, and all the way along the southern U S all the way to New Orleans as well. There are thousands upon thousands of SP model railroaders who would buy this engine. And others beyond that who would buy this relatively generic model to convert to something else similar.

An M-4 mogul or a C-9 consolidation.  The present consolidation is a Harriman engine based an Illinois Central prototype, the C-9 was also a Harriman engine. They are very similar. A few detail revisions plus the addition of the medium oil Vanderbilt tender, whic Bachmann used to sell, would make a good C-9.  But the mogul is really what we should see someone offer in plastic. They are similar to moguls formerly everywhere, unlike the present oddball one Bachmann offers. Again, the medium oil Vanderbilt tender would serve well behind such an engine, so all they have to do is make the engine. 

With all of the molecular attention to prototype detail being lavished on the new Pennsylvania K4 and New York Central Hudson, it would be nice to see a real Southern Pacific mogul issued, instead of merely relettering  the present mogul.