December 22, 2015 is the 33rd Anniversary of the UP-MP-WP Railroad Merger. To go along with President Kevin Love’s column in the latest Eagle, things around the Eastern Side of the old MoPac are certainly not the same, either. The Screaming Eagles in Illinois are all gone…Spartan Cab SD40-2’s heading up Chicago-Texas TOFC freight trains…Short Bay Window cabooses bringing up the markers, etc., Coal trains powered by GP38-2’s, GP15-1’s, and B23-7’s…

I remember seeing MP 3515 (GP50) at West Frankfort IL in the “new” scheme…UP Yellow-Gray with MISSOURI PACIFIC spelled out…and after seeing this scheme, I realized the MP was going away. In fact, alot of the MoPac Memorabilia that I have came from the dumpster at West Frankfort…where the station agent told me to save what I wanted to keep…as they were told to destroy the “old” stuff…West Frankfort was the headquarters of the Joppa Subdivision…BTW…and my home town.

With the merger came job reductions, too. And the jobs at West Frankfort were gone…moved to Salem IL. Towers at Neilson Junction and West Vienna were closed as well by 1989. In a few short years…part of the old main line from Vienna Jct to Joppa was torn out…leaving only the joint trackage at Vienna Jct. between the now-UP and BN. Today, UP hauls western coal to Joppa…via 150+ unit coal trains…but uses BNSF track now for access to Joppa.

It was interesting at the same time the UP-MP were combining their operating departments (1986); of which started the elimination of the MP name on equipment; The coal mines in Southern Illinois were simultaneously dying as well…so a combination of reduced rail traffic in this area coincided with the merger…Naturally, a young MoPac fan like myself had a negative outlook on the UP merger…with all things considered.

So, it was this event 33 years ago that helped to shape my modeling interest…and interest in the MPHS…as I joined in the 1990’s. I started reporting every blue engine sighting in the early 1990’s from my perch in the gun tower at the Maximum Security Menard State Penitentiary along the MP’s old Chester Subdivision…as the MPHS had a “Blue Watch” column in the Eagle for surviving MP engines in Jenks Blue…But things changed in a hurry…or so it seemed.