The coming of the Diesel presented an opportunity for the railroads to reflect their corporate image in multiple various ways by the appearance and perception from shippers and the public of their locomotives through paint schemes. For myself this was the only redeeming quality of these invaders, others will disagree, but that’s another thread topic for another day.
Diesels may have received several re-paintings over the years of their service. As an example I’ve chosen the PRR Bp-20 ( Baldwin passenger 2,000hp) with its somewhat elegant elongated sharknose body. These locomotives went through 4 different paint schemes in their truncated and at times unreliable careers.
Tuscan with multiple pin stripes
Tuscan with a single stripe
The infamous Brunswick Green with multiple stripes …on the even more infamous 5770
Brunswick green with a single stripe
Seems like a lot of changes and ‘looks’ for locomotives that really were not around that long.
A Forum member recently commented that the GM&O rarely even washed their locomotives let alone repainted them.
So this all leads to a question… Which RR model-type locomotives received the most number of paint schemes while in service and which the very least?
I notice that the New Haven had quite a number of radically different paint schemes.
[quote user=“Miningman”]
The coming of the Diesel presented an opportunity for the railroads to reflect their corporate image in multiple various ways by the appearance and perception from shippers and the public of their locomotives through paint schemes. For myself this was the only redeeming quality of these invaders, others will disagree, but that’s another thread topic for another day.
Diesels may have received several re-paintings over the years of their service. As an example I’ve chosen the PRR Bp-20 ( Baldwin passenger 2,000hp) with its somewhat elegant elongated sharknose body. These locomotives went through 4 different paint schemes in their truncated and at times unreliable careers.
Tuscan with multiple pin stripes
Tuscan with a single stripe
The infamous Brunswick Green with multiple stripes …on the even more infamous 5770
Brunswick green with a single stripe
Seems like a lot of changes and ‘looks’ for locomotives that really were not around that long.
A Forum member recently commented that the GM&O rarely even washed their locomotives let alone repainted them.
So this all leads to a question… Which RR model-type locomotives received the most number of paint schemes while in service and which the very least?
I notice that the New Haven had quite a number of radically different paint schemes.
I guess they only washed the engines after a major overhaul. Railfan who love them clean and glossy could only dance for the rain, very very heavy rain…
Speaking of PRR BP-20. I love them painted with DGLE and 5 golden strips. But the best color scheme designed for them was never adopted:
The large headlight and the Keystone plate were supposed to be housed inside a squarish casing. I am not sure about the detail of this design, but it looks like the Keystone plate could be lit up like a neon sign. I love the look of the PRR BP-20, they were supposed to be the best thing to rival the 20th Century Limited and NYC’s E7/8. Their unique front end design stands out in the sea of EMD’s E/F units.
Well, obviously the ones that changed the least were working for the railroads that ceased to be or were merged into a larger parent, like the Nickel Plate Road for exmple, relatively early after dieselization.
L268 in the unique blue scheme shown on the Wikipedia page had been largely white briefly just prior to blue, and had been grey and blue and orange and blue but was repainted yellow in the late 1990s and stayed like that…
But this class has the Australian record for colours in actual service, we think…
Hard to say the diesel schemes that changed the most or the least, that would require almost a doctoral dissertation on someone’s part.
It is certain that as railroads in the Northeast began descending into the abyss as the 1960’s rolled on that a general cheapening of the paint schemes began as an economy measure. The Jersey Central began with a handsome tangerine and blue scheme, then a cheaper sea green with yellow stripes, then an even cheaper solid sea green with no stripes, then sea green with a filth overlay. Hard times.
What does amaze me, looking at the NS Heritage Diesel Fleet, is how well the original paint schemes from the 40’s translated themselves to todays road units. The people who came up with them in the 40’s were artistic geniuses in their own way.
Well heck if a guy can take the time to build a Lego T1 along with a fairly complex web posting, or others make those simulations, then uncovering the various paint schemes over the years on a unit should be a piece of cake. Remember the Conrail Executive Inspection train… wonder how many iterations that E8 went through. However for a doctorate degree , I’d be glad to do it. Piled higher and deeper!
Thanks Peter. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one that experienced the great confusion of 1975. Also glad to see North America wasn’t the only place that had railroads that thought they were in the painting business.
Sometimes I think maybe the railroad thinks " perhaps if we give it a nice new paint job it will perform the way it should" but since this usually followed a major shopping those hopes were founded on reality.
Union Pacific has had almost no major changes in its paint scheme. Most of the changes were relatively minor, such as larger letters and numbers and a change to a lightning stripe pattern separating the yellow and grey.
The double-ender concept never caught on here in the US, obviously, but interestingly it proved pretty popular in Europe thanks to a team-up between Sweden’s NOHAB and GM. Check this out…
It gets even better with one of those NOHABS. A few years back there was a Danish movie called “Dancer In The Dark” being filmed in Sweden that was supposed to take place in the American Pacific Northwest, so the filmakers had the Swedes repaint one of their NOHABs into a Great Northern scheme. And here it i
A contender for the ‘least’ might be Lake Superior Terminal and Transfer Ry. It dieselized with EMD NW-2 switchers in the 1940’s, which were delivered wearing a version of the green and orange Great Northern “Empire Builder” scheme (GN was a 1/3 owner of LST&T) and continued to wear that scheme without change until the railroad was folded into BN in the 1980’s. Number 100, LST&T’s first NW-2, apparently was sold to Cargill and was still in it’s original scheme in 1997…
Not quite countless, but it did have some changes over the years.
For a good overview on Lehigh Valley diesel paint schemes, and maybe more than you’d ever want to know, check this website. It’s for modelers, but the information’s good.
These were much the same mechanically as the European units, but the clearances permitted use of the steel cab pressings used in USA locomotives. These were trimmed to cut the width down to 9’9" and the height down to 14’0".
Love the Erie-inspired paint scheme on the Victorian Railways Class B!
But then, I’ve got my reasons…[;)]
The Jersey Central might just have purchased GM double-enders, in fact they may have preferred to do so, they were in the process of buying F3’s after all, but GM wasn’t interested in special orders in 1946. They didn’t need to when you come right down to it, considering the business they were getting. Only Baldwin was willing. A double-ender did make a lot of sense for commuter work.
