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What railroads used different paint schemes for freight and passenger locomotives?

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What railroads used different paint schemes for freight and passenger locomotives?
Posted by Water Level Route on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 6:12 AM

No real point to this other than curiosity.  Got to thinking last night about this and I could only come up with three, but there has to be more.  I'm talking about railroads having specifically different paint for freight diesels as opposed to passenger diesels.  The off chance a passenger unit happened to be used on a fast freight does not remove that railroad from consideration.  If a railroad used E units on passenger trains and F units on freight trains, but they carried the same paint job, they should not be on the list.  (Think Union Pacific)

-The New York Central's lightning stripe scheme used a main color of black for freight units and gray for passenger.

-The Monon had black & gold for freight and red & white for passengers.

-The Santa Fe had the red & silver warbonnet for passengers and blue & yellow for freight.

I think I'm right on these three.  How about others?

Mike

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Posted by gmpullman on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 6:22 AM

The Pennsy had some GG1s and E7 and 8s in Tuscan along with the Baldwin 'sharks' plus the silver (aluminum) GG1s for the Congressional and Senators:

 PRR_4880-GG1 by Edmund, on Flickr

 PRR_GG1_4913 by Edmund, on Flickr

I'm no expert on Northern Pacific and Great Northern but I believe the early Fs each had different passenger paint schemes. 

Regards, Ed

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Posted by caldreamer on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 6:31 AM

Southern Pacific had black and silver, black widow and bloody nose (scarlet and grey) paint schemes for their freight engines.  They had the daylight, two tone grey and silver and red paint schemes for their passenger engines.

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Posted by wjstix on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 9:12 AM

Northern Pacific - black and gold on freight diesels, two-tone green for passenger diesels.

Milwaukee Road - in 1955, the Milwaukee took over the Omaha - Chicago connection for Union Pacific passenger trains. As part of the deal, the Milwaukee had to supply a certain number of cars and passenger diesels, all repainted into UP's yellow and gray scheme (but with Milwaukee lettering). About 1960, the Milwaukee decided to just paint all it's passenger equipment in the UP scheme, but kept it's freight diesels in black and orange.

Great Northern used Pullman green / Omaha orange on both freight and passenger diesels, except for some early diesel switchers that were just black. Although often referred to as the "Empire Builder" scheme, the green and orange was used GN diesels starting in IIRC 1941; the first streamlined orange and green passenger cars didn't arrive until 1947.

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Posted by xdford on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 6:52 PM

Pennsy had Brunswick Green GG1s for freight as I recall, also CN had striped F units for passenger and black with Red Orange ends for Freight geeps in the 60s and early 70s apart from the Montreal electrics.  Nickel Plate had the Bluebird (?) scheme for passenger PA's and black for freight units. Milwaukee had Yellow FP45's and E/F units for passenger trains and Orange and Black for freight units.

Southern Pacific had Daylight colours as well as the short lived Overland scheme of Red and Silver.  Seaboard had silver diesels for passenger and black (?) for freight units. CB&Q had Vermillion and Grey and Black and Grey units for freight and Silver for Pass E's and F's.  Southern Railway had green diesels for passengers and black units for freight.  Rio Grande had yellow F units which appeared on Pass trains with black units for GP/Freight units. Probably many other examples if we look hard enough! 

Cheers from Australia

Trevor

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Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 10:55 PM

The B&O kept the blue/grey/black/gold scheme on their E units long after freight engines got simple blue schemes.

That lasted until the passenger cars started to be repainted in the blue/yellow C&O based scheme.

Sheldon

    

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Posted by Water Level Route on Thursday, November 16, 2023 5:04 AM

Man, I knew I was missing some but not this many!  Thank you for the feedback guys.  Really interesting about the Milwaukee Road stuff.  I always wondered why I would see Union Pacific units lettered for Milwaukee Road.  Now I know and I know I had it backwards!  I'm going to have to look up that silver/red Southern Pacific scheme.  I don't think I've seen that before.

Mike

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Posted by wjstix on Thursday, November 16, 2023 9:24 AM

Water Level Route
Really interesting about the Milwaukee Road stuff.  I always wondered why I would see Union Pacific units lettered for Milwaukee Road.  Now I know and I know I had it backwards!

Before 1955, UP trains went from Omaha to Chicago on the Chicago & NorthWestern. However, since CNW traditionally used the same shade of yellow as UP ("English Stagecoach Yellow" IIRC), it isn't as noticeable on the CNW-lettered cars in UP colors. Of course in the 1990s UP bought CNW so gained direct access to Chicago.

Stix
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Posted by Morpar on Thursday, November 16, 2023 10:52 AM

Let's not leave out the Nickel Plate. Black and yellow freight diesels and those awesome looking Blue and light gray (or whatever the color is) passenger units. 

Good Luck, Morpar

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Posted by wjstix on Thursday, November 16, 2023 1:32 PM

I suppose you could also look at the joint operations where one railroad painted some equipment to match another railroad's scheme, like the Burlington and SP&S owning some of the green and gold Empire Builder passenger cars. (That's why it said "EMPIRE BUILDER" in the middle of the letterboard, and only had the railroad name / intials on near the car ends. I believe Central of Georgia and perhaps some other railroads had orange and brown passenger cars and engines that were used on trains they ran jointly with Illinois Central.

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Posted by MidlandMike on Thursday, November 16, 2023 9:09 PM

wjstix

 

 
Water Level Route
Really interesting about the Milwaukee Road stuff.  I always wondered why I would see Union Pacific units lettered for Milwaukee Road.  Now I know and I know I had it backwards!

 

Before 1955, UP trains went from Omaha to Chicago on the Chicago & NorthWestern. However, since CNW traditionally used the same shade of yellow as UP ("English Stagecoach Yellow" IIRC), it isn't as noticeable on the CNW-lettered cars in UP colors. Of course in the 1990s UP bought CNW so gained direct access to Chicago.

 

Did SP ever have UP yellow diesels for their City of San Francisco section?

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Posted by mvlandsw on Friday, November 17, 2023 1:03 AM

The Seaboard Air Line had black and later green freight diesels. They used a very pale green for streamlined passenger units.

Illinois Central had black freight units and brown and orange passenger units. 

Burlington had black and later red freight units and silver passenger diesels.

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Posted by BEAUSABRE on Friday, November 17, 2023 3:20 AM

PRR's standard scheme for switchers, freight and all electric power what it called Dark Green Locomotive Enamel - called, perhaps wrongly, by fans and modelers Brunswick Green

Passenger Power - E7's, E8's, BLW DR-6-4-2000 Pasenger Sharks, Alco PA/PB's was Tuscan Red

Silver and Tuscan Red was applied to a very small number of GG1's as an experiment.

 

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Posted by gmpullman on Friday, November 17, 2023 5:47 AM

An excerpt from a letter by H.T. Cover on October 9, 1947 gives information to the concerned parties as to approved paints for purchase: The attached letter listing the finishes for the exterior and interior of diesel-electric locomotives contains some new items.  These new items, with the brands of materials approved, are given below:

 

Ref. 47-2626 – Enamel, Locomotive Finish Dark Green, PRR Shade, approved brand, (Ext. D.E. Locos,)

E I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Inc.:    Dark Green Locomotive Finish.

Interchemical Corporation:                    Brunswick Green Enamel.
Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co.:                   Dark Green Loco. Finish LS-8696-A.
 
The Thresher Varnish Co.:                     Dark Green Locomotive Finish.
 
In 1951 correspondence about painting electric locomotives, DuPont’s “Dulux Exterior Enamel Brunswick Green 88-32550” was specified.
 

 

Thus “Brunswick green” was the name at least two paint suppliers used for their colors which were approved as being suitable for use under the PRR’s paint specification for the dark green color, which they generically named DGLE.  Since some of the suppliers’ color names were the same as the PRR’s generic name, one might assume they were formulated specifically to match the PRR desired color, rather than being an existing stock color.  Whether or not Interchemical’s offering was the original color chosen by the PRR or whether it too was a match to some predecessor color is not known.  In official documentation of the color, such as on the paint diagrams, the generic term DGLE was used, so as not to bias purchasing or usage towards a specific supplier’s offering, as might have happened if “Brunswick green,” for example, had been identified.

In less formal, day-to-day correspondence within the Motive Power Department, both terms, as well as mixtures of the two, appeared regularly.  Some examples of the variations found in correspondence of 1947 through 1969, from the Chief of Motive Power, Mechanical Engineer, Chief Mechanical Officer, Altoona Works Manager, Superintendents of Motive Power and others include: Dark Green Locomotive Finish, Dark Green Locomotive color, Synthetic Dark Green Locomotive Enamel, Locomotive Dark Green, Brunswick Green coating, Brunswick Green, standard Brunswick Green, Locomotive Standard Brunswick Green, Brunswick green enamel, and dark (Brunswick) green.

Cheers, Ed

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Posted by dti406 on Friday, November 17, 2023 11:01 AM

BEAUSABRE

PRR's standard scheme for switchers, freight and all electric power what it called Dark Green Locomotive Enamel - called, perhaps wrongly, by fans and modelers Brunswick Green

Passenger Power - E7's, E8's, BLW DR-6-4-2000 Pasenger Sharks, Alco PA/PB's was Tuscan Red

Silver and Tuscan Red was applied to a very small number of GG1's as an experiment.

 

 

Not necessarily, the E7's, PA's and other passenger power were delivered in DGLE and later repainted into Tuscan Red.

Rick Jesionowski

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Posted by FRRYKid on Saturday, November 18, 2023 2:51 AM

wjstix

Northern Pacific - black and gold on freight diesels, two-tone green for passenger diesels.

Actually there were two two-tone green schemes. The early two-tone green with a yellow stripe separating them (often called the Butterknife or Pine Tree Scheme) and then the Lowery scheme with a different set of greens.

wjstix

I suppose you could also look at the joint operations where one railroad painted some equipment to match another railroad's scheme, like the Burlington and SP&S owning some of the green and gold Empire Builder passenger cars. (That's why it said "EMPIRE BUILDER" in the middle of the letterboard, and only had the railroad name / intials on near the car ends.

The North Coast Limited also had some CB&Q owned cars that ran in the consist. They were painted in NCL colors but had small CB&Q lettering on them.

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Posted by NorthBrit on Saturday, November 18, 2023 6:53 AM

An interesting thread indeed.   The variety of colours  is amazing.   Here in the U.K it is no different, especially pre 1923.

I remember (a few years back)  there was such a conversation about London & North Eastern Railway and its locomotive colours.   Some people saying one colour and others another colour for the same locomotive.

Pictures were being shown  and an arguement began.

The end result was the colour in the film had faded over time,  giving a  false appearance.

 

David

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Posted by BEAUSABRE on Sunday, November 19, 2023 1:20 AM

Yes, the early City motive power consisted of locomotives of the UP, SP and C&NW, all painted in the Union Pacfic's colors. They were 3 uinit sets of EMC E2's with each road owning a unit


 

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Posted by caldreamer on Sunday, November 19, 2023 6:29 AM

UP used the two tone grey paint scheme for their Overland passenger trains and mail trains. SP used the two tone grey scheme on the Lark from San Francisco (Actually Oakland to Portland).

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Posted by wjstix on Monday, November 20, 2023 1:35 PM

FRRYKid
FRRYKid wrote the following post 2 days ago: wjstix Northern Pacific - black and gold on freight diesels, two-tone green for passenger diesels. Actually there were two two-tone green schemes. The early two-tone green with a yellow stripe separating them (often called the Butterknife or Pine Tree Scheme) and then the Lowery scheme with a different set of greens.

Yes, but it's "Loewy" scheme, created by French-born industrial designer Raymond Loewy.

Wink

Stix
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Posted by FRRYKid on Tuesday, November 21, 2023 2:37 AM

wjstix

 

 
FRRYKid
FRRYKid wrote the following post 2 days ago: wjstix Northern Pacific - black and gold on freight diesels, two-tone green for passenger diesels. Actually there were two two-tone green schemes. The early two-tone green with a yellow stripe separating them (often called the Butterknife or Pine Tree Scheme) and then the Lowery scheme with a different set of greens.

 

Yes, but it's "Loewy" scheme, created by French-born industrial designer Raymond Loewy.

Wink

Oops - SignOK so I can't type. What else is new?

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Posted by ndbprr on Sunday, January 21, 2024 3:41 PM

The PRR had 135 GG1 engines. Two were painted silver for the Congressional limiteds but there was sufficient grease and filth that they were quickly repainted as the silver did not hold up. Five were then painted tuscan red for the two Congressional limiteds and the two senators with one spare.

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Posted by garya on Monday, January 22, 2024 7:58 PM

The Frisco (SLSF) used black and yellow for their freight units, and a bright red color on their passenger E units.  

Gary

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Posted by wjstix on Thursday, February 1, 2024 9:11 AM

Perhaps stretching the point a little, but there were some railroadsthat in the 1960s began painting their diesels in a simplified paint scheme, eliminating one or more colors or stripes or something, but kept the passenger cars in their original scheme.

Great Northern for example simplified the Pullman green / Omaha orange scheme and eliminated the yellow stripes in between, in their diesel engine scheme, but never changed the passenger cars (well, until they went to Big Sky Blue in the later 1960s).

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Posted by oldline1 on Saturday, February 24, 2024 4:55 PM

The ORIGINAL Norfolk & Western paint scheme for freight and passengers was nearly identical but was basic black for freight and Tuscan Red for passnger units. All passenger units were GP-9's until they leased some RF&P and ACL E-units in 1958. These units remained in original colors but had N&W on the sides replacing the owner's names.

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Posted by IC_Tom on Sunday, February 25, 2024 8:22 AM

mvlandsw

The Seaboard Air Line had black and later green freight diesels. They used a very pale green for streamlined passenger units.

Illinois Central had black freight units and brown and orange passenger units. 

Burlington had black and later red freight units and silver passenger diesels.

 

Illinois Central also kept the chocolate and orange for passenger diesels/cars until Amtrak took over.  That was several years into their orange and white freight paint scheme era, which began in 1966.

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Posted by SSW9389 on Sunday, February 25, 2024 9:37 AM

caldreamer

Southern Pacific had black and silver, black widow and bloody nose (scarlet and grey) paint schemes for their freight engines.  They had the daylight, two tone grey and silver and red paint schemes for their passenger engines.

 

 
Add Cotton Belt with four daylight passenger diesels. The other five passenger RS-3s were in black widow paint.    Ed in Kentucky
COTTON BELT: Runs like a Blue Streak!

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