Just picked up an Athearn Genesis GP9, NYC #5906 -- a frieght unit painted in passenger gray. I read that NYC did this for some freight Geeps, but what I don't know is why. Can anyone shed some light on this?
Thanks!
Aaron
Maybe to balance the passenger engines that were delivered in black?
The four Cleveland Union Terminal geeps were black as were several orders of other passenger GP7 and -9s.
I believe the NYC like many roads were always playing around with the "corporate image" and there were some bumps along the way.
I've seen reference to two passenger cars (Cascade series 10-5s as I recall) where one side of each car was painted in two-tone green!
A couple of the first E7s were delivered in black (4002-03) while another pair were in "reverse" two-tone gray (4000-01 and 4004-07). Later NYC applied the "Century green" to a pair of E8s and one E7B while painting a few others in solid black and yet others in solid gray.
The green looked awful when the road grime covered it. The black "dip" wasn't popular either so the gray won out.
Then they played with a gold stripe on the "cigar band" just to spice things up but that didn't pass muster either.
So from the writings of the NYC people in articles I've read in the NYC Headlight magazine and some of the former NYC people I've talked to there really isn't an exact rhyme or reason for gray vs. black. Some of the P&LE engines were delivered in "Pacemaker Green" with gray stripe.
The Geep orders are covered in this part of the rosters available here:
https://nycshs.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/dieselroster51.pdf
When in doubt, run one of each
NYC_GP7_5660-5656 by Edmund, on Flickr
Good Luck, Ed
ps. I sent you a PM back in January, Aaron. Had a question about some passenger cars.
First, are you sure it's in the passenger scheme - dark gray body, lighter gray 'lightning stripe'? The only image I could find of Athearn's 5906 looks to be in the freight scheme - black body, light gray 'lightning stripe':
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/athearn-athg62427-ho-scale-gp9-nyc-20895723
NYC did originally buy many of it's GP-9s as passenger diesels, particularly for use on commuter trains or other lower ranking passenger trains, but soon found they had more passenger engines than they needed so converted them to freight engines (removed the steam boiler, regeared the engine, etc.). I'm not sure if 5906 was one of those or not; a quick check of a couple of my NYC books indicates that engine was bought in 1956 as a freight engine.
Ed, thanks! -- And sorry I missed the PM, will check now.
Stix, yep, definitely gray! Took me a moment of staring at the unit before I figured out what was wrong -- it didn't match the Fs to which it was coupled! I guess I assumed all were gray. Couldn't run that one because it isn't DCC'd yet (long story, but I grabbed the wrong loco off the pile), and when I opened up the other one, it was black. These are my first Geeps, they were a gift and I didn't really do any research, so it was a head-scratching moment. The locos aren't in front of me but I'll post pics at some point.
New York Central in the 1940's-50's were pretty consistent in paint schemes, although there were changes. The 1938 20th Century paint scheme had passenger cars that were medium gray with a dark gray band through the windows. The earliest passenger diesels wore an early version of the "lightning stripe" scheme that matched up with the 20th Century cars. In the late forties, they reversed the scheme and switched to a dark gray body with a lighter gray band through the windows, and passenger engines were repainted to match (in what might be considered the "classic" passenger lightning stripe scheme.)
Freight engines - GPs, RS-3s, F-units, etc. meant for freight were black with the gray band...basically the lightning stripe scheme but with a black body instead of dark gray. Of course, they had GPs that had steam boilers when delievered, and so could be used on passenger trains. These were originally painted in the passenger gray scheme, but were repainted black when their steam boilers were removed and they were re-geared for freight work.
The black for freight / gray for passenger rule continued when the simplified "cigar band" scheme was introduced c.1960 and continued until the merger in 1968.