Someone asked a wekk or so ago about unpatched Conrail untis, so I’ve been keeping a lookout whenever I see a NS consist around here. i haven’t seen any unpatched units but I’ve noticed that there seems to be no standardization to the patching process. Some units have the old numbers whited out with the new numbers in black, some have a black patch with white numbers, and some are different still. Does the patch merely depend on the facility doing the patch, or is there some rhyme and reason to the different patches?
I’ve noticed the same situation with the former Conrail units. On NS, it can be either a white number on a black patch or a black number on a white patch. There doesn’t seem to be any consistency with this. On CSX, the old number seems to have been painted over with Conrail blue paint with the new number in orange (yellow?).
I believe that the Conrail units with “white patches” on them owned by NS are staying in that paint. NS owned Conrails with " Black Patches" I believe are going to be repainted soon. CSX owned Conrails with orange letters are staying the same, I think, and unpatched CSX owned Conrails are going to be painted-very few left unpatched.