I was watching a youtube webcam of Horseshoe Curve and a primer gray loco came by. People made a big deal out of NS putting a loco in primer on the tracks immediately.
Then I saw a review of the same loco by Athearn the Genesis ES40DC/ES44DC.
It said these were introduced in the mid 2000's. My question is: Is this really just primer? Why were they not delivered in NS black? Why have they not been painted?
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Others may have more information on the subject but as far as I can recall there was a back-log of production work at GE in Erie, and the NS had their own facilities (Altoona and Chattanooga) so, just like some model locomotives, they were delivered "undecorated". Plenty of BNSF and CSX units were delivered in the late '90s and early 2000s too. I used to see a bunch moving west, in service, through Cleveland.
When I had a tour of Altoona they were finishing up assembly on some Amtrak P32s that Erie didn't have time to do.
RR_views_0029 by Edmund, on Flickr
It may have been a cost saving measure in order to get the locomotives put to work ASAP and we will paint them later. Locomotives were in short supply, then. Maybe the railroad's own shop could paint them at less cost, too. Most got painted in the first few months but a few locomotives "slipped through the cracks" and were still in primer several years after delivery.
There's a lot of leasing units out there in plain gray paint, too. GE had a big lease program and there was no reason for a fancy paint job on a locomotive that may wind up on any number of railroads.
Maybe others have more info...
Good Luck, Ed
I believe that the locomotives were urgently needed at the time, so usefullness outweighed corporate image for the time being. They should be all painted now. Altoona is doing rebuild work. Maybe the locomotive was doing a shakedown run before being painted.
Thanks for the info. Clearly they were left in primer long enough to be model worthy and at least one still is. It was head end power on a consist headed toward Altoona the other day.
This one is half painted:
The brand new primer locomotives have been gone for a while now. The new half-primered locomotives are the first DC2AC AC44C6M rebuilds from standard cab Dash 9-44Cs. The wide cab and aux cab are new, but I think that with the slowdown in new orders that they are being painted by GE when rebuilt now, and so are released without primer and in full NS colors.
For whatever reason, BNSF 791 ran around in primer when it was new, but I don't think that any other of their Dash 9-44CWs did. Not sure why.
GE actaully had a contractor they kept busy painting locomotives for a while in the early to mid 2000's, they had a separate location in Corry PA on a siding adjacent to the WNYP (former Erie/ EL main). It was called Thunderport, the concrete slab they installed is still there but the building was disassembled and sold, probably about 2007 when things slowed down. The area can easily be seen on Google Earth, between Mead Avenue and First Ave between the WNYP right of way and the A&E (former Pennsy) ROW .
I always thought it would be a good bit of "Modeler's License" to have a scene like that, you could have brand new power in several road names sitting along the classic Alco's of the WNYP!
Better pic of the 1/2 paint job
NS 4047 has been running through Pittsburgh for the past couple of weeks.
When the conversions to a AC446CM are painted, they look like this:
The cab lettering is somewhat like the SD80MACs with a radial wave. Looks good to me.
Tom
Pittsburgh, PA
The preimer gray is too plain to me, NS's Black/White "Throughbred Scheme" is much more attractive.