why the funny look?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

a hundred years ago, some steam locos that were all black had silver faces painted on the front… bnsf has a paint job some call the ‘vomit bonnet’… on this forum page an ad with a bright blue loco has broad blue-white stripes at the head-end… i’ve seen work like this since the '50s… why do they do it? is it easier to see the engine? is there thinking that says, 'well, maybe they can’t hear the horn, bell, or make out the 500-watt steady headlight with the 300-watt mars flasher, plus ditch lights, but they surely cannot not miss the bright stripes or the yellow facing…

is it to catch someone’s eye for safety reasons? is it just an idea to make it pretty? was it a design that got picked by the office pool?

for myself, it looks dumb… if the machine’s bell, horn, steady and flashing lights, plus a minimum of common sense that would suggest don’t mess around on r.r. tracks, doesn’t alert someone to stay alert when on the tracks, that person should not be walking around without a keeper, anyhow…

but, maybe it’s a tradition to dress an engine that way in some divisions… is it a local thing or is it consistent for every unit in a particular order? …comments?

2

a. Corporate pride.
b. Company differentiation.
c. Public perception improvement.
d. Safety.
e. Employee moral.

Pick one, any one, and you will have a possible answer. Oh, by the way, Henry Ford used to say you could buy his Model T in any color as long as it was black, but look what happened to that story (even though cars in neat colors don’t work better or get you there any faster or safer). Jim

3

well since they took away the B&O’s dome The N&W Circular herald and the chessie cat off locomotives I don’t mind seeing UP’s wings comming through Defiance or Archbold on a run through train.
have a good day
joe

4

thanks for your reply… i have thoughts (albeit not based on r.r. exerience) about stripes and colors that offset loco noses… i don’t propose these as authoritative, they’re just my opinions… and i want to add them to the others…

i do support the safety issue… if an engine is navigating thru tight quarters (street rail, congested yards), or areas where the use of horns and bells are sensitive issues, stripes could help to attract attention, if the fra has no objection…

i don’t think it would help on open terrain, where people on tracks ought to be able to see and hear approaching locos from a distance allowing them to move out of harm’s way…

the other reasons: i doubt the ceos and v-ps care much about stripes enhancing the employer’s image… i doubt even more that crewmen care much for what stripes could do for the r.rs. public image… i’m even more doubtful as to the public’s concern about paint schemes, mascots, slogans, etc…

it’s true that design influences perception: shapes, colors (single & multiple), do strike a sensitive area within people that causes a favorable or unfavorable response… r.rs. are no diffrent: engines are probably the most visible sign of a r.rs. identity… the r.r. should project a friendly invitation to the public to do business or at least co-exist on a cordial basis…

some schemes are better received than others… some are plain, some inventive…
i liked sp’s noses, as the gold & yellow bars, parallel to the ground, reminded me of eagle’s wings… i saw mp units of a light blue shade… the red buzz-saw logo made a strong impression… i also like conrail’s bright blue scheme… it was plain but seemed to create a peaceful mood, comparable to a wide, blue sky…

these impressions are worthwhile pursuing thru studies of color’s impact upon people and preferences of those who live in the area where the r.r.'s corp. offices are located…

i don’t see where adding stripes can have a strong i

5

Hey there, thanks, I respect your opinion and we could argue this all day long, but the bottom line as far as I am personally concerned is that I like the paint shemes (well, most of them) and they make my railfanning more enjoyable, so I am for it!

6

The answer is simple. the design is not for the public or that someone wanted to dress up the engine, its design is to brake the contrast in yards and when switching. if you are standing away from a engine ready track (round house) there is a buch of engines there you glance down there all look the same but soon something changes that design brakes the contrast of all that becouse of the stripes . you wouldnt see the engine moving right away not at 5 and 10 mph. remeber that headlights on dim is all you get in yards unless that train is leaving. I have been crossing tracks looking both ways and something just didnt seem right, ( at night) and have had a engine about 5 car away rolling and becouse of the yard lighting the dim headlight was the same color and brightness as the yard lighting. and it wasnt til the engine turned i didnt see it. of course i wasnt standing where i get hit, but it was that gut feeling. in daylight them stripes moving along will get you attention. the engines wont blend in with other equepment. I hope i exsplained this so you understand.

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thanks, you certainly explained down to my level when you said stripes moving along will get attention… engines won’t blend in with other eqpt… that’s all i needed to know…

8

I do believe WABASH hit the nail on the head. I read where the origional BN paint scheme concept lacked nose striping. Those green loco’s blended too well into the scenery so out came the strips. I have read CSX had a similar problem with their first pain scheme, blue and gray with no yellow.

9

It wasn’t a problem with steam; snorting, belching, blowing steam locos were hard to miss. But diesels are a different animal. Take a look at action photos of working diesels up to about 1960; the headlights are out in almost all cases on almost all RR’s. A big exception was passenger trains…they had mars lights or Gyra-lights on all the time for safety sake. A working diesel can sneak up on you with almost no warning. At 40 or 60 mph a diesel freight can swing around a curve out of “no where” at a road crossing. Starting about 1958 the railroads started using the bright headlight during the day for all road operations. Passenger jobs doing 70/90mph had started that sooner. The high visibility paint job is also part of it. And yes, the CSXT “Stealth” scheme was just that, and quickly modified.

10

your comments say lights on diesels were often out until the '60s… you’re saying the lights were broken? i have not had as much exposure to r.rs. as others, but i tried to be observant at every opportunity… i don’t recall ever seeing a moving engine with a broken light, ever…

with different styles of eqpt. in different years, there may have been engines with and without mars flashers… i couldn’t say when ditch lights became routine, so i don’t know when seeing them became routine as opposed to unusual, but i can say i never saw a moving freight loco, light or heavy, without burning headlights in 50+ years., except possibly without mars eqpt…

when did moving locos w/o headlights become o.k.?

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The lights weren’t broken. A lot of railroads in the early diesel era only used headlights from dusk to dawn, just as you would use your car lights. The ditch lights so common today have been required in Canada for many years; they became mandatory in the US much more recently…something like late 80’s/early 90’s.

12

Hi Cab,
Type PTRA into your search engine. It will bring up southwest short lines web page, with a bunch of photos of our locomotives. They are MK1500Ds.
They are painted dark blue to keep the dirt from showing. The white stripes are not white, but silver, and thei are not paint, but Scotchlight reflective tape. At night, almost any light source, including the somewhat weak and dim light from a switchmans lantren will light these thngs up. Note the chevron on the nose. Regardless of what country your are from, the chevron means to be careful, and it allows us, the employees to know which end of the locomotive is faceing us, even in the middle of the night, with nothing more that the ambient light in the yard.
Stay Frosty,
Ed

13

…Some colors on automobiles are really thought to be safer. For some reason people see them easier and sometimes avoid an accident. I personally don’t know what colors they are.

QM

14

Awhile back some extensive study demonstrated that the best color for fire truck visibility was not the traditional fire engine red color, but rather a sort of puky lime yellow. So they started painting them that color and the public hated it. Now they are using red again.
Locomotive paint schemes seem to be selected for all the criteria already mentioned: saftey,public perception,night visibility.
And then you have some guy who has a desk job making decisions about such matters, and he wants to leave his mark. That is how you end up with so many curious combinations. If safety and visibility were the only criteria, there would be no black nose engines with a horse on there.

15

Correct, but let’s not forget the time honored tradition in American busiess of hiring a consultant to do what rank and file can do for much less money and usually better, like developing a locomotive paint scheme. Remember the old saying…“Those who can DO, those who can’t CONSULT!”

16

but you must remeber one thing those black nose engines with horses heads on them also have white stripes comming off the horse head design.