How quickly were fleets repainted?

[DrW]

Just today, one of the Geeps handling the Lubbock-Slaton local in Slaton, TX, was GP38, BNSF 2212. While parts of the cab were in BNSF orange, the whole long hood was still in SF blue with a yellow billboard "Santa Fe". The Santa Fe/Burlington Northern merger happened more than 20 years ago (in 1995)... 

[DavidH66]

As someone who lives near both CSX and NS lines, one thing I've noticed is despite being a few years older, NS has a LOT more predecessor freight cars out there than CSX

[Anonymous]

I'd say a good rule of thumb would be about 10-15 years. I know Conrail still had some old patched Penn Central locos roaming around until the mid 80s. By then anything that hadn't been repainted was either scrapped or sold to another railroad. Some of their freight cars were still rolling in older paint schemes with only CR reporting marks and numbers added to them through When Conrail was split up amongst CSX and Norfolk Southern. I think it took CSX and Norfolk Southern about 13 years to repaint all the Conrail engines they were gonna keep. Equipment that's sittin' in the paint shop is equipment that ain't out on the rails makin' money so stuff gets repainted whenever time and capital allow for it. 

[mbinsewi]

wjstix

BTW I assume that's why at least for many years (if not still today?) Illinois Central and Missabe units repainted by into CN decoration maintained "IC" or "DMIR" sublettering on the cab.

Thats what I said in my post, about the IC, GTW, and WC.

Mike.

[bearman]

Here in Phoenix, there are still locomotives with the blue and gold ATSF color scheme that have not been repainted in the pumpkin and green BNSF colors.

[caldreamer]

I live near a branch of the CSX. and just outside of town is a Dal-Tile plant.  They get from two to four covered hoppes on a regular basis.  Some are in good shape, but others are VERY rusty and you can hardly tell what railroad owns them, especially bad are the CSXT ones.  NS covered hoppers are in good shape as are the leased ones.

[restorator]

The main reason I asked this is that I can have more variety in my "era" while still being within a few years. I can be in the early years of a merger, or the years before with generally the same equipment. It really broadens the excuses for a wide variety of roadnames on the layout.

[wjstix]

Sometimes it can be done pretty fast. I believe when the Chicago & NorthWestern bought the Minneapolis & St.Louis in 1960, virtually all M-St.L engines and cabooses were repainted within 1-2 years. Freight cars as noted can be very different, there were still GN "Big Sky Blue" boxcars in service with GN reporting marks in 1991.

BTW I don't think CN was worried people would be 'scared' by them buying control of US railroads. Who owns who in railroading can be tricky to work out, especially when another country is involved. Canadian Pacific took over the Soo Line back in the 1990's, but the Soo still exists on paper as a separate entity, and there are still engines (and cabooses!) in regular service in Soo paint. BTW I assume that's why at least for many years (if not still today?) Illinois Central and Missabe units repainted by into CN decoration maintained "IC" or "DMIR" sublettering on the cab.

https://duluthrailroad.wordpress.com/portfolio/gallery-eleven/#jp-carousel-437

BTW into the 1980's some Soo Line GP-9s I saw still had a small "WC" on them, indicating they were originally bought by the 'old' Wisconsin Central.

 

[NWP SWP]

Theoretically it could be a few months to a few years to never...

For example I saw an all door boxcar being switched out of an industry by two KCS Geeps, well the boxcar was STILL in BN light green with a big BN logo on the side albeit the entire cat obviously had not been painted since the era of BN and was showing it's age in the form of rust spots all over the thing.

[JWhite]

angelob6660

I read that Canadian National kept the Illinois Central black locomotives. They thought of people seeing CN locomotives around mid-west to the southern states would be terrifying. That Canada would buy other railroads. 

With the IC being around it shows that the CN cares about preserving the railroad that served within its normal route.

 

All of the IC locomoives are being repainted in CN colors. I live on the IC mainline, it runs 100 yards from my front door.  It's pretty unusual to see IC black on the head end of a train these days.

They have a paint shop set up in what's left of the old roundhouse in Centralia, IL and it won't be long before IC black locomotives are gone.

Jeff White

Alma, IL

 

[spe3376]

DavidH66

here's still a very large amount of SOU and NW Marked rolling stock on the rails. As far as locomotives go I think all the Conrail locomotives were apinted or sold by 2012.

 

On one of the first episodes of Stranger Things, Season 1, there's a rail yard in the background with SOU and NW equipment...and a Conrail loco.  Impressive for a show set in 1983 to get those details right...oh, yeah, back to the topic...those episodes were shot in Georgia in November 2015...

[mbinsewi]

The CN has been slowly repainting the units, and when they do, if it was a IC loco, they put the IC reporting marks on the cab, under the windows.  The same thing they have done / are doing with repainted WC units.

The CN loco that runs from Sussex, WI to Fox Lake, IL. just recently, in the last year?, got the CN colors, with the IC reporting marks.  Until then, it was in the IC black.

The CN's (former WC, former SOO ) Stevens point-Fond-du-Lac, WI., to Chicago main is about 3 miles from me, I watch it a lot.

Mike.

EDIT:  Just wanted to add that the locos also retain their original number.  I have a scanner in my office, and any radio chatter between the conductor and dispatch on any of these units, the conductor uses: IC, WC, or GTW, with the unit number, not CN.

 

[NittanyLion]

angelob6660

I read that Canadian National kept the Illinois Central black locomotives. They thought of people seeing CN locomotives around mid-west to the southern states would be terrifying. That Canada would buy other railroads. 

With the IC being around it shows that the CN cares about preserving the railroad that served within its normal route.

 

If that was their plan, they did a pretty terrible job of it.  Plenty of CN units all over the old IC.

And, based on the condition of the IC units in Pennsylvania, it was more of a "this is cheaper" than anything else.

[DavidH66]

restorator

I know that a lot of factors would affect this, but in general how quickly would a railroad repaint most of its fleet after a merger or major change? I know there are always a few cars that never get repainted even decades later, but the question relates more to the majority of locos and cars. Would say 50-80% likely be done in 6 months? 1 year? More? Less?

 

Are you talking locomotives or Rollingstock. I live near an NS line and there's still a very large amount of SOU and NW Marked rolling stock on the rails. As far as locomotives go I think all the Conrail locomotives were apinted or sold by 2012. CSX was a lot better about this as you'll see Chessie freigh cars on the system but they'll be at the least patched out if not fully re-painted. 

[angelob6660]

I read that Canadian National kept the Illinois Central black locomotives. They thought of people seeing CN locomotives around mid-west to the southern states would be terrifying. That Canada would buy other railroads. 

With the IC being around it shows that the CN cares about preserving the railroad that served within its normal route.

[NittanyLion]

The Bessemer and Lake Erie got merged into CN in 2004, and most of the power is still in orange and black 14 years later. At least one shopped unit got CN colors.

And when the Bessemer had a power shortfall a few years ago,  CN sent some Illinois Central Death Stars over  They're still there and in IC paint 19 years later  They'll probably get scrapped without ever seeing their owner's livery  

[gmpullman]

BRAKIE

Ed,Do you recall the Erie Alco S-2 that was never repainted and lasted into CR

I remember being in Meadville, PA, and I saw four S-2s, at least one still in Erie black in 1974. Maybe this was one of them that lasted into C-R (only two short years later).

Erie526 by Edmund, on Flickr

Similarly, Bill Howes, Director of Passenger Services on the B&O "set aside" a few passenger cars that retained the Blue Gray & Gold. I'm pretty sure Tygart was one of the cars, still wearing that paint at the B&O Museum.

Likewise, I think it was Bill Volkmer over at the Pennsy's Wilmington shops that managed to keep some of the PRR diesels out of the paint shop for a while.

Sometimes, there was a group of engines that were destined to be white-lined so didn't get repainted, then a shortage of power would have them get placed back in service for a while, still in old paint.

I recall seeing E-8s with New York Central bleeding through the Penn Central black and one panel being painted Amtrak Platinum Mist with a new Amtrak re-number on it. At least one Amtrak GG1 still had the PRR Dulux Gold stripe still on it. I think a few C-R ones did, too.

These are exceptions, of course. Fun stuff to model, though.

Cheers! Ed

[BRAKIE]

Ed,Do you recall the Erie Alco S-2 that was never repainted and lasted into CR and maybe to the scrapper?

Story goes (Trains mag)  they hid that engine whenever the top brass was around.

[7j43k]

restorator

...the question relates more to the majority of locos and cars. Would say 50-80% likely be done in 6 months?

No.

1 year?

No.

More? Less?

 

 

 

As you can see from previous comments, that depends.

 

With the BN, which seemed to be in as big a rush as railroads get, I would say that BN got to 75% green in about 3 years.  And.  Remember.  Some of this was not repainting:  some old locos just got retired.  and some new locos were delivered in green.

 

BN didn't much get into repainting their freight cars the way they did their locos.  It mostly happened when they had to be repainted anyway.  But remember:  cars were retired.  and new cars were bought.

 

 

Ed

[7j43k]

BN was formed on March 2, 1970.  The last locomotive in a predecessor paint scheme was painted August 24, 1977.  That's 7 1/2 years.

 

BNSF is STILL running predecessor paint schemes over 20 years after its formation.

See photo taken two days ago:

 

http://www.railpictures.net/photo/650306/

 

Ed

[angelob6660]

I remember somebody said that it took Burlington Northern 8 years to repaint locomotives and equipment. But in 1978/79 their was still old predecessor railroad paint. 

So a good 70% painted in BN green or around there. 

[rrinker]

 It even varied within the same railroad - someone recently posted a picture of a Conrail Reading patchout where they did the absolute minimum possible. In Conrail's numbering scheme, this particular loco only changed the first digit of the road number. In the final Reading scheme, the road nymber was in large font at the end of the long hood, so there is ONE black square at the end of the long hood with the new number, the other 3 numbers are still yellow on the green. The Reading diamond on the cab just had the "Reading Lines" in the center painted over and "Conrail" added. It seriously looks like the guys in the paint shop got a call that the loco needed to be put in service RIGHT NOW so they did the quickest possible work and shoved it out the door.

                                     --Randy

 

[DSchmitt]

I didn't realize it could be so long for some locos - an example about 18 years

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locopicture.aspx?id=6162  has photos of C44-9W UP 9647 (formerly SP 8183) patched dated July 8, 2014

Photos of it in yellow dated March 27, 2015

[Overmod]

It's often a bit of a tautology: done as quickly as management wants it or can fund it.

Santa Fe got rid of the Kodachromes quickly, as a matter of policy.  UP, on the other hand, left a great many SP engines patched only for many years.  PC, poor as they turned out to be, ran the dip shop as fast as they could; it might be argued that Conrail managed repainting judiciously.

[mbinsewi]

I watched the WC (Wisconsin Central) get started in the late 80's, and it was a year or more. 

Many of their start-up SD45's were from the BN, and were a faded green for a long time.

They also had ex SOO Line locos,  since the WC took over the SOO's Lake States Division, when a 99 yr. lease expired.  mainly GP30's may have been painted first.  I'm not sure.

But anyway, yea, it's not an immediate priority.  I think the last CNW locos were finially painted in UP colors after how many years from the buy out?

From what little I know about railroads on the east cost and atlantic states, it was even more complicated.

Mike

[restorator]

I know that a lot of factors would affect this, but in general how quickly would a railroad repaint most of its fleet after a merger or major change? I know there are always a few cars that never get repainted even decades later, but the question relates more to the majority of locos and cars. Would say 50-80% likely be done in 6 months? 1 year? More? Less?