Factory direct trains are offering BLI F7 A/B sets with the NYC model painted black with gray lightning stripe. I am used to seeing pre-merger NYC diesels in various gray liveries and have seen photos of black F units with the cigar band. When was the gray lightning strip on black adopted and was it used for both freight and passenger diesels.
Modelers with more info will likely chime in.
From what I have read, from about 1940 thru the 1950s, New York Central passenger cab units were painted in the Gray “Lightning Stripe” scheme. Freight units, hood and cab, were painted in the Black “lightning Stripe” scheme. There were a couple of variations of the lightning scheme used on a few units.
Sometime in the 1950s, the “Cigar Band” scheme was introduced.
With increasing competition from the highways and airlines, budget strings were getting tighter and the NYC had to take many cost cutting measures. The Lightning scheme was elegant, but very expensive to keep up.
Hope this helps
The pictures of the cigar band all are dated about 1962 and later. This may have started in the late fifties, but the cigar band was used more in the sixties era as the standard paint.
if you look under fallenflags and then NYC, you can date the change to a year or so.