i was chatting on AIM the other night and UPtrain IMs me with a picture he took of 9087. it had been doing interchange service on NS for a while now. but it seems NS also PEELED THE RED UP NUMBERS!!! what’s more, they swapped out the cab number boards for fresh new 8575 ones and changed the text on the back of the long hood to “CNW 8575”
the cab logo is still covered by that blasted yellow rectangle and the shield still hasnt been peeled from the front, but this could be the start of the restoration of CNW 8575!
Not Photoshopped- the contributors album on RRpicturesarchive.net has more pics of the “repatch” including a couple good close ups of the patch itself. The ones that really sell it is where he photographed it coming and passing with a speed blur- you can’t fake that. Someone at NS had way too much time on their hands- they wiped down the patch area, painted over the UP numbers and added NS style numerics. If you look close at the nose you can see they tried to peel the UP shield off the CNW shield on the nose- but to no avail. Something tells me the UP isn’t going to appreciate this very much!
Looking closer at it, I am even more convinced than ever this is a photoshop. If you look at the 6th photo (with the sun going down) you can see bits of the red UP number between the 5 and the 7 - this appears in no other picture.
Did UP sell the unit? What was it number under the new UP system. Unless someone did rework the unit, I find it hard to believe that someone would commit the time and talent to replace the numberboards on the unit.
No way in HELL is that photoshop. I’d love to see someone even try to do that “photoshop” with the numberboards in the close up shot. Its not as easy to photoshop things as everyone tries to make it. And i have a hard time believe Zach would do this himself, or send it to someone, as these arent the “clone here and there” type deals, these would have taken a VERY long time. Alec
I find it hard to believe, actually impossible to believe that someone would patch the enigine on there own. First, the locomotive has a number assigned to it that must be displayed promitaley in the number boards and the side of the locomotive. These numbers are very specific to the locomotive. The blue card if it reads UP 9087 than must display UP 9087. This gets into some very serious violation of the rules. Locomotives must be identifiable by the correct number or serious problems could arise. I dont know seems to me that someone would have gone through a tremendous amount of trouble to repaint this locomotive, foamers on the otherhand have nothing better to do than repaint loco’s in photoshop. I am defiently not convinced its real.
As a commercial artist I know that if one had infinite time and way too much patience they could come very close to simulating a speed blur on some numbers on the side of an engine and make a fake like this- but keeping in mind that the pixel depth of this picture is not the greatest at 72 DPI- it would be very easy to put this image back into Photoshop and using the filters, be able to tell where new layers and filtering had been added. When text is added in Photoshop it is added initially as a vector- then when modified it must be converted to raster format- this resampling leaves a digital telltale or “halo”, as would any cloning or copy pasting done in the image (pull the curves and see if the halo “glows”)- if it was resampled at any time, the filters can unearth that. The speed blur is even harder to do since first that said person must have found the perfect picture of NS 8575 or the combination of those numbers to create not only the side numbers, but perfectly lit and sampled numberboards- unless they have the NS number and numberboard font, this could only be achieved by copy pasting from an existant image- then skewing and distorting it into perfect perspective and scale- once again leaving a halo or telltale. The motion blur tool can be used to make a stationary or sharp object look like it’s in motion- but a partial motion blur over an object can not be achieved no matter how much you feather the selection area- not to mention the insanity of sitting there with the lasso tool and making a perfect selection over every tiny detail- and forget using the smudge tool, that just drags and duplicates pixels. Photoshop is a wonderful tool- and I’ve seen some good fakes in the past (there was one of an LV International caboose floating around some years back that was really good)- but if these were faked, this would set a new standard for photo manipulation and cloning.
(Keep in mind this isn’t the first time in RR history an engine has had this done- Penn Central had the ongoing probel
Well convice yourself that it is real. thats right i had this engine in my train. It is a “B” unit only and i cant remeber who is the leasing company. { I was a bad engineer i didnt do my inspection} but glad its gone anyways it was junk
Alright ya’ll. I took the shots, they’re real. The train had just come off the NS from Pittsburg on its way to Pine Bluff, AR. It still traces as UP 9087 in the equipment register because it still has UP 9087 AEI tags. I have no idea why anybody at NS would have done that, except for the remote possibility that somebody at an NS shop was just simply a CNW Fan.
Why in the heck would I put NS numerals on a CNW Locomotive? That’s stupid, I wouldn’t waste my time photoshopping something like that,if I even had the program.If I had wanted to photoshop something I would photoshopped it in full CNW,justto throw you people off. I don’t go around posting fake pictures or fake information without telling somebody it’s false either just prior to or just after telling them. I’m not going to deny ever making anything that was fake (with MS Paint), but I don’t go around saying, “Hey, look at this, this is real!” I say something like, “Look what I did in my spare time for kicks.” My computer illiterate father and semi-railfan who doesn’t even know what photoshopping is, was the first one to recognize and question the reason for the NS Numbers. I was just as surprized as anybody when it showed up looking like that.
Jim, Wednesday that engine was in Texarkana, so I find it a little hard to believe that you saw it on Wednesday, but thanks for backing me up. If you’re like me, days get away from us sometimes.
Bottom line, it’s real, not fake, not photoshopped, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Dude…what the heck are you smoking? I took that 8 minutes after sunset and lightened the picture slightly, that’s it. I have 5 or 6 more duplicate photos on my camera that I didn’t post to keep it from being repetitious.
Just for the record, I was not trying to imply by my earlier comment that these particular photos were photoshopped. I merely wanted to point out that it is possible to fake movement with photoshop. As to whether such fakes could stand up to close scrutiny, I will take the word of a professional that they could be identified as being fake. But the effect could still be very “real-looking” to those casually looking at such a picture.
Wow, this is a first, a patched CNW engine that has been patched by NS! There are several patched CNW SD40-2s that have had their UP shields ripped off the front of them revealing CNW on the front, but this is the first time I’ve seen someone go over the patch under the cab. Interesting combination of CNW, UP, and NS on that one!
Looks like someone at a NS shop noticed that the UP/CNW unit had the same number as a retired NS C39-8 and had some fun. They took the boards from the NS unit and a little paint and there you have it.