Holy cow! Is that what I think it is?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I was on my way back from a meeting on the peninsula this morning when I did a double take. There can’t be many of these left. What year is this, anyway? Wasn’t that merger a decade ago? [:)]

It was doing some switching of empty hoppers and reefers, while lashed up with a UP engine.

As a native Coloradoan, I was pretty excited to see the old black and orange.

2

That probably isn’t as unusuall as one would think. Rare maybe for that road name, but Norfolk Southern STILL has old Conrail equipment in the blue color scheme. It is nice to see the fallen flags still pounding the rails though.

Glenn

3

We see the Conrail stuff all the time down here in middle Georgia.

4

Wouldn’t it be nice if major railroads would repaint some locomotives coming out of overhaul in the colors and lettering of fallen rails.
Tom

5

The Union Pacific isn’t repainting anything from the merged roads except the locomotive numbers and reporting marks, just running them until they wear out. The SP was the same way. I still see Conrail, Rio Grande, SP, and other defunct roadnamed locomotives mixed in with UP power here in Arizona all the time.

6

See Tons of Conrail blue around Philly, and there was even a GP40-2 in Chessie colors not far away a few months back

7

How about NS 4610 in Southern Green? I’ll see if I can find a pic.

Brad

8

I still see Conrail in central Tennessee on my way to work.

9

Conrail blue is big in the Harrisburg, Pa yard.

10

There are several around here in Colorado. One works out of Greeley, one works Colorado Springs, and there are three used in a set that work the South Denver locals. Probably a lot more than I know about.

11

Just yesterday I saw 3 SP dash 9’s 1 patched the other 2 unpatched, as well as a patched CNW unit.

12

There real isn’t much incentive for railroads to repaint the equipment from merged railroads. They probably don’t think the locomotives have much value as billboards anymore so why go to the expense of repainting them.

13

I always see a pair (DRGW) working the Pueblo, CO UP yard.

14

I saw a freshly repainted hopper last week that looked like all the other CSX hoppers except that it had NYC reporting marks on it above the car number. CSX hoppers have CSXT reporting marks on them. Apparently there must be some reason for merged lines to retain the old identities under certain circumstances.

15

I’ve been told of two possible reasons…

  1. The road may have been bought but stock companies/ownership may have been a seperated entity (that’s rolling stock not shares)… so the rolling stock didn’t get bought up… bit like selling the track but not the trains.
  2. It all got sold but for various accounting reasons (usually tax) things still get grouped under old paperwork titles… this may happen where a deal on the original purchase of the stock still has to work out it’s time,

Don’t know how accuarte this is but seems reasonable.

Have fun!

16

The Wheeling & Lake Erie still had a few ex-Rio Grande engines near their Brewster, OH shops in 2002. Here’s one a year later: http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/wle/wle5413abw.jpg.

17

The NDG&E bought untouched SP and CNW six axle equipment that I have seen in the DFW area. They usually just have 4 axle GP’s. Also, since the NS/CSX split of Conrail, I have seen many big blues and well as SF and BN equipment running on KCS tracks in Wylie, TX. It’s great to see warbonnets, the big blues, etc.

18

There is a Rio Grande SD 45-2T that hauls a string of gravel hoppers into a cement plant at the Choate yard in Baytown Texas that i pass once a day going home from work…it’s there for a few days about once a month …of course it’s accompanied with a UPMac90 but at least it’s still around…gotta remember to get a camera and take a picture of it someday before they’re all gone…chuck