On MICHIGAN RAILROADS 1980 webpage - happened across the fact that in the spring of 1980 Conrail sold the RS32 fleet to the CNW. They must have been repainted by Summer 1980.
Andrew
Right up to Conrail the Reading and the Lehigh Valley used thier ALCOs system wide. The only restrictions were weight or wheelbase limited. Of course D&H and GB&W used ALCOs system wide through the 70’s. And SP&S used ALCOs system wide until the BN merger.
I lived in Bound Brook NJ in the middle '70s and occasionally when the CNJ was short of working cab cars they would use an RS3 on the opposite end of a cut of coaches from a GP7. So while ALCOs on passenger service in the USA in the '70s was rare at least one road was confident enough to use it in commuter service. In fact D&H used only ALCOs for thier passenger service (RS3s and PA4s).
The trick was having the maintenance crews familiar with the ALCOs. That is true of any manufacturer. When Southern Pacific replaced the FM trainmasters with SDP45s the maintenance crews could not properly maintain the EMDs. It took time and training for the mechanics to become familiar with the differences. Also when D&H bought the EMD SD45 demonstrators they quickly traded them off to Erie Lackawanna for some U33Cs because the D&H maintenance crews were not at all familiar with EMDs. D&H later got the demonstrators back when they got a big infusion of GP38-2s and GP39-2s. Any oddball locomotive is a maintenance problem, whether it is an ALCO in a sea of EMDs on the Penn Central or an EMD in a sea of ALCOs on the Delaware & Hudson.