During the time Amtrak was process of their paint scheme heritage units. I thought of the same thing.
I lost the how the numbers were designed to each unit over 9 years ago.
GNOR Heritage paint schemes were on SD70ACe locomotives #5710-5728 (First Order). They were to the railroad in 2013/14 after NS announced theirs a year prior.
5713- Company Colors 1 "blue, yellow and red" (1938)
5714- Diesel switcher black (1941)
5716- Company Colors 2 "Midnight Sky" dark gray and blue" (1954)
5717- Freight Colors 1 " blue and black" (1955) simple repaint removing yellow stripe.
5719- Freight Colors 2 "blue and gray" (1964)
5728- Freight Colors 3 "blue, yellow and red" (1972)
Amtrak America, 1971-Present.
I have a friend who models the SOUTHERN ATLANTIC SEABOARD (SAS) in HO scale. The premise is that it was created by a merger of the SEABOARD COAST LINE, ATLANTIC COASTLINE, FLORIDA EAST COAST, and SOUTHERN RAILROAD.
Just for fun, we assume that it also gobbled up what was left of the once mighty STRATTON AND GILLETTE sometime in the 1990s.
So the only STRATTON AND GILLETTE "Heritage Unit" is a Dash-8-40CW painted in the Black, Red, and Yellow scheme of the F3 freight units. It is lettered STRATTON AND GILLETTE, but says "SAS 1995" on the cab, and is numbered 1995 to reflect the year that the SAS absorbed the SGRR in his world of nonsense.
Anyway... yours is your own world of nonsense... do whatever you like.
All I can find right now is an old in-progress photo when it was barely started.
These are SGRR F3s:
-Kevin
Living the dream.
It is fiction, and it is yours. ANy number you want is OK. A patriotic theme could be 1776,, or some date. MAybe the railroad was born in 1841, make that the number. The railroad was born 184 years ago? Make that the number.
One thing I am confused by is that, when creating your own heritage units how do you determine a signifcant road numer, yet make it look the road number look legit as if its part of a roaster? An example of a project idea came to me when this earlier year the Canadian Pacific complted its acquisition and merger of the Central Maine & Quebec railroad. I like the Maine Central railroad and the Canadian Pacific as that was the fist railroad that started my interest, so why not using two undecorated HO scale Athearn genesis locomotives with CPR details and create a Maine Central heritage unit?The two liverys of the Maine Central I like the most are the Pine Green with gold lining and the Rock Island style, Boston & Maine maroon, whitish grey with gold lining livery that the Maine central made their own on their EMD E7 diesel locomotives.I want to number them as if they appear in the three sets of 100 ES44Acs on CPs roaster. The first digits would be either 87, 88 or 89 as thats what they start with and choose the next two digits to represet a significat date in the roads history.I will explain. Lets use the newer ES44ACs in CPs roaster that where buiolt in 2011 as examples#1. The MEC operated was formed in 1862 and ran until 1981. Would I number my heritage unit either #8962 or #8981? This would be decorated in the pine green livery.#2. The MEC six axle passanger E7 diesel that was painted in the maroon, whitish grey with MEC mine tree logo and lettering like the B&M did, I am not so sure. The B&M ran from 1836 to 1983, so that could be #8936 or #8983. Or prehaps #8956, as I have both the MEC #705 and #706 E&s that BLI released so thats an idea.I might want to do a B&M heritage unit do that one is a bit tricky. Have any advice for how do decide? Have you had this issue when creating your own heritage units?