Union Pacific #9950

The early 80s would end up being the twilight years of the Missouri Pacific. In 1982, the Missouri Pacific and Western Pacific would be merged into the Union Pacific system. This sparked the beginning of merger frenzy that would sweep the industry over the next two decades, with the Union Pacific going on to absorb several more companies in the future.

Just before the end of the Missouri Pacific's independence, they placed an order of SD40-2s from EMD. By this point, the SD40 family had become wildly successful for EMD, so it made sense for for the Missouri Pacific to order some more.

These would be painted in the railroad's well known blue paint scheme sporting two white chevrons on the nose with the road number on the long hood. Below the cab windows, 3320 and her sisters wore the MP's iconic "Screaming Eagle" logo.

The Missouri Pacific's SD40s had some rather unique qualities to distinguish themselves from other SD40s. The most notable of which is that the MP opted to order these units without dynamic brakes. The MP saw dynamic brakes as unnecessary given most of their territory was in the flat plains of the central US, whereas dynamic brakes see the most use in mountainous and uneven terrain.  

The lack of a dynamic brake grid gave the Missouri Pacific locomotives a distinctive and smoother overall look compared the standard EMD design of the time.

The Missouri Pacific also opted to have the locomotive's bells mounted up high by the radiators rather than down low by the fuel tank like the standard EMD design. Once the locomotive was in Union Pacific's hands, they relocated the bell to the more usual position and cut off the original bracket. The mounting point of the original bracket can still be seen today.

It was decided that the former Missouri Pacific and Western Pacific locomotives would be repainted into the Union Pacific's iconic yellow and gray scheme, much to the dismay of MP and WP fans. The locomotives would also need to be renumbered to avoid conflicts between the three railroad's rosters. So, 3320 would lose its blue and get a fresh coat of yellow and along with it a new number of 4320.

4320 would live a largely uneventful life from here on out, though it would be renumbered to 9950 in either the late 90s or early 2000s. However, in 2001, its career would be cut short compared to most SD40-2s. It would suffer a mechanical failure and was retired rather than being repaired. It's lack of dynamic brakes likely made it less desirable in the eyes of UP management. Coupled with the fact that UP already had a large roster of SD40s and we're in the midst of buying a huge amount of new SD70Ms, 9950 was likely seen as being more trouble than it was worth and was laid up in Yermo, CA.

The Western America Railroad Museum was able to acquire the 9950 from UP by 2005. It along with our Union Pacific caboose remain our two primary pieces of UP equipment. Despite Barstow being Santa Fe and BNSF territory, the Union Pacific has had a long history here in nearby areas and in the form of trackage rights through Barstow.