I know this is not feasible but it would be nice if the railroad’s could keep a few locomotive painted in previous paint scheme’s, Example NS/Southern 4610. It would be nice to see WM, RFP, SAL etc…
It is certainly possible. All it takes is a little management support and $$$$$$$. Witness the NH-painted locos in use in Connecticut and the GG1 that got a PRR paint job. Getting management support from the railroads might be iffy in some cases, but maybe not. Unless the RR is REALLY into retro, though, you’ll probably have to have an outside funding source to actually get the paint on the loco.
Yes, that would be nice-for us railfans with cameras in particular.
At least a lot of the fallen flag rollingstock has managed to survive.
BN seemed to be doing that, but I suspect they’ve stopped The SD70MAC coal-service locos were sort of N.P. 2-tone green, and the Pumpkins are G.N.-like. Sure wi***hey’de keep the SF Warbonnet going. I’m not sure what the issue would be - doesn’t the builder paint a new loco?
Chessie paint would look good on a new sd 70 or ge dash 9.
stay safe
Joe
I am certainly not an expert on UP, but didn’t UP tip its hat to the SP by painting two SD-40-2s (I think that was the unit) in SP colors, etc?
Management support, maybe, but $$$$$$? They still have to paint them and any time I have bought paint there was no difference in price for colors.
CPRail has some in older colours and was talking about doing an old SOO colour and a TH&B colour, I don’t know if this is still happening ?
Yes, everything comes down to $$$$$$$$$
A gallon of red, a gallon of green, a gallon of white, a gallon of chartreuse and a gallon of sky blue pink will cost more than a 5 gallon tub of black though…
Corperate greed is starting to show that railroads don’t want to be appealing. the CSX Bright future scheme, frow what I hear, was started in place of the gray-blue-yellow because it costed less for 2 colors, was quicker to do (Think workers getting paid by the hour. more done for same price), and used less tape. Ither things, like CSX cancelling private excursiuons on commuter equiptment soon, show that railroads don’t really care how joe somebody sees em, as long as big companies pay them.
I could not picture UP doing anything like that. What you may be thinking of is that the FRA said that the paint jobs on some of the SD40T-2s working hauler service out of Roseville was in such poor condition that the number and onwer could not be read and told UP to do something. They repainted them with some of the gray paint and kept the SP number (temporarily, all have UP numbers now) with SP on the sides and no wings.
It seems like I hear the UP would not let SP 4449 go down to Sacramento to the Railfair 99 because it was not a UP locomotive so it had to go on BNSF. Is that true?
Also, it seems like when UP buys a railroad it moves alot of power (include locals) to other parts of the system that did not used to be part of the rail company that was just bought out. I know that we had mostly UP locals years ago, when UP’s computers showed large quanitites of SP four axles still around. Looking at the UP’s computers, I saw a similar situation across northern California.
Didn’t NS recently paint a locomotive in Southern colors?
There is a picture of it in one of these threads, it is a GP59. It seems like Athearn made a model of a GP60 painted in Southern paint, I don’t know if it is prototypical.
Yes. In the mid 80s I saw several former Missouri Pacific engines in the Riverside-Colton area, far from former home rails. In the late 90s I saw an eastbound freight come through Santa Barbara with a C&NW engine in the lead.
well… sorry to brake it to you…but they are in the biz of shipping goods…not joyrideing railfans over the system…you want to ride a train…get a job on a railroad or ride amtrak… joe public dosnt give a rats *** about the railroads anyways… and regardless of what it is painted like… joe public isnt going to give a train a second look… a train is a hunk of heavey equipment … nothing more… paint is paint…and it costs money… to buy and to do the actual painting… not to mention the added liabilty of haveing something running around the system that will attract tresspassers that want to take its picture…
i hardly think its coprate gread as much as it is a way to stay alive… if you where the head of a railroad and the bottom line was shrinking…you would be looking anyway you can to trim fat…and painting equipment in elaborat paint scheems is FAT…
csx engineer
…I believe that really is a fact that Joe Q. Public does not take a second look at a passing train unless they are looking at it at a crossing…and the railroad is partly to blame for that and I’m sure they could care less. And I agree, their mission is to make money…and not to please “fans”…,etc. I can’t blame them for the mission stated above but still think they could enhance their place in the business world with better PR and ultilmately help the bottom line…
Would there be any legal matters in replicating a paint job of some former Co’s. paint scheme…? Finally I agree not too many managers will be spending time and money researching paint scheme’s and colors, etc…even if it is all legal. Their mission, when it’s time to paint an engine…bottom line…do it as economical as possible.
Painting locomotives is nice, but it is quite expensive in these days of burdensome EPA, OSHA and other regs and usually when a RR paints locomotives it would rather see it’s name on the power than some predecessor road. Painting a locomotive depending upon paint type, preparation and how applied can cost over $30,000/unit.
LC
And should the railroads take scarce funds from track repair or personnel training so their locomotives look pretty?!? C’mon. Give me a break with the corporate greed crap…
LC
RRs shouldn’t even bother painting the loco’s…
They should all be like the NS grey ghosts with the RRs initials on the side.
Think of the money they would save.
I doubt its true. The UP owns all the lines into Sacramento and this year the allowed the Zephyr excurson train for the Western Pacific Historical Society Convention .