Hi!
As I’m planning to build a small model railroad set in Maine in the '50s, I’d like to know when Boston & Maine and Maine Central started to change colors of their diesel engines (B&M from maroon to McGinnis blue, MEC from pine-tree green to harvest gold) and what were the first units that started to run in the new paint scheme. I saw some MEC GP9 were painted in maroon, too, like B&M units? Why and when?
Thank you.
Ciao, Ivan
Can’t answer the “when”, but the “why” of common colors on some MEC & B&M diesels had to do with common ownership and management at the time.
Heres some info on the Maine Central… hope this helps out. Its not a lot but it could help. http://www.trainweb.org/trains/MECROS.HTM
Heres some more photos for you. http://www.trainweb.org/trains/mec.html
Thank you very much for the information!
Ciao, Ivan
Ivan,
Both B&M and MEC would have been using maroon locos in the 50’s, thats when B&M started to change to McGinnis Blue ( and when they stopped using same management and the reason for the common color and paint schemes ) and MEC to Green. MEC didn’t use harvest gold until the late 60’s. Remember repaints didn’t all happen at the same time, only as needed, so you would see a mix of colors on the rails. No harvest gold on the MEC or blue dips on the B&M in the time period you want to model. BTW those maroon MEC units were GP-7s, they only had one GP-9, it was the last GP-9 built and was only painted harvest gold.
Chris
Thank you Chris for the precious information. Yes, I was wrong: I confused GP7 and GP9. In the meantime I found this site (http://www.faracresfarm.com/jbvb/rr/bmrr/b_and_m.html) that has a large number of datas useful for B&M modellers. I decided to set my future model railroad in 1957 so I can have B&M older diesels in maroon and the new GP9 in McGinnis blue, as well a mixture of green and maroon MEC units, including Alco RS-11. A problem is I don’t know a manufacturer that produces B&M GP9, as well cabeeses of both roads…
Thank you again.
Ciao, Ivan
Ivan,
The B&M GP-9 in McGinnis is not available (yet). I hope Atlas will come out with it soon as well as the maroon GP-7. Atlas and Proto 2000 have both put out a bunch of MEC GP-7’s but the B&M has been ignored so far except for the dip GP-7s. The other way to get them is to paint them yourself, a sure fire way to get some manufacturer to come out with them within six months.
RS-2s (P1K) and RS-3s (Atlas) for B&M in maroon were put out fairly recently and may be available with luck on eBay.
If you want to have a fairly unique loco get a P1K RS-2 undecorated and a set of decals and paint the MEC 554. Its an easy paint scheme and unlikely to ever be available commercially as it was a single unit experimental paint job.
Both Atlas and P2K have done nice MEC cabooses but again B&M has been ignored. Unfortunately the only way to get good B&M cabooses at this time is brass. Athearn did some MEC caboose kits fairly recently but they lack seperate grabs and glass in windows and I think Bowser caboose kits are available for B&M but similar to the Athearns in detail.
Chris
Thank you very much. By the way, I’m thinking to change railroad. What a pity, because I very like B&M and MEC colors [V]. However I remain in New England and I’m meditating to choose New Haven as, if I’m correct, there is more availability of equipment. As my layout will be small and there will be rolling stock from my freelanced road, I need a small fleet of engines and cabeese, just three or four. I saw Atlas released RS-3 and -11 in NYNH&H colors, as well cabeese in pre McGinnis and McGinnis livery.
Ciao, Ivan