Maersk Sealand Painted Locomotives

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

I just saw the “New Model Trains for Week Of 16 May” article in the News and Products Section Of the MR website. The article announces Athearn SDP40Fs in BNSF Mearsk Sealand livery.

What was the history regarding the painting of these locomotives in this scheme? A quick google search revealed that Santa Fe/BNSF GP60Ms and NS SD40-2 where given similar shcemes.

I notice the locos painted in this scheme are the older locos. GP60Ms where some of the oldest superfleet stuff and of course SDP40Fs are also very old. Is there anything significant about this?

Finally are the afore mentioned locos, or anything similar, still around today? I would think not, I don’t think SDP40Fs survived long on BNSF and they are painted in an adapted war bonnet scheme (except the NS unit).

2

I remember seeing photo’s of Mearsk painted diesels leading stack trains east from California in train magazines back around 1990. Apparently the paint was applied for a promotion of the Mearsk lines.

Here is some info I found on TO:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,847884

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,219624

3

Thanks riogrande!

I am also curious as to how many locos got painted this way, and what types and railroads?

Thanks for the answers both past and future!

4

Looks like the NS SD40-2 that had the paint was repainted back into NS colors in 2008.

RRpicturearchives has 6 pages of the loco.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/Locopicture.aspx?id=16903&Page=1

Mike.