If it’s supposed to be a PC locomotive it should be painted black. Black was picked as a “neutral” color as it had no connection to the PRR (Brunswick Green or Tuscan Red) or the NYC (Grey with “lightning stripes” or the “cigar band”).
However, as a “Trains” writer once put it, “Penn Central was a marriage made in Hell, and the bride wore black!”
And I’m sure it was a helluva lot cheaper to order several thousand gallons of black Rustoleum (or whatever they used) than to come up with a new color scheme.
EL was probably not chosen for the NS heritage fleet because of its close resemblance to Lackawanna and there are already both Erie and Lackawanna heritage units. On another note, D&H wouldn’t happen because NS doesn’t own any parts of D&H.
At any rate, NS 1700 is the real deal. Its EL colors are the original colors worn by this locomotive.
There was actually some internal discussion about a D&H heritage unit… The “hedgehog” AC/DC unit special schemes kind of got in the way of that - and the folks that were interested in the heritage stuff aren’t in a position to do anything about it these days.
I don’t see it as so strange. Penn Central is an important chapter of what’s now part of Norfolk Southern’s legacy. Makes sense that it was represented.
That Erie Lackawanna was ignored I imagine entirely has to do with a limited budget and wanting as much variety as they could have. The paint scheme was already largely represented with the Lackawanna unit, where as a PC unit was cheap to do and looks significantly different than Norfolk Southern’s regular fleet of black locomotives.
Regardless, it was rectified in the end with a true heritage unit later on when one of the handful of original EL locomotives on the NS roster came due for repainting. I doubt we’d of seen an original EL locomotive repainted into its original colors had one of these modern GE’s or EMD’s been repainted as such.
So for all the Erie Lackawanna fans like myself that were annoyed back then, it worked out for the best.