50 years later - CSX heritage units

[Overmod]

Heritage unit for CSX, with one of my favorite schemes:

https://www.railwayage.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/CSX-1973-Chessie.jpg

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

It's a nice blend of the current and heritage colors.

[Backshop]

IIRC, the Chessie U-boats had a much wider vermillion stripe than the EMDs.

[BaltACD]

As a B&O guy, I wasn't thrilled when the Chessie paint scheme came on the scene, however, over time and with the transition to CSX - the Chessie scheme grows on one.

 

[VIPER1]

I dont know but this scheme dose not look right too me with only 3 quarters of the engine painted Chessie 

[Flintlock76]

I like it!  I hope it starts a trend for CSX!  

[zugmann]

I always thought they should just give up the whole "CSX" thing and change their name to Chessie.   

[Overmod]

zugmann

I always thoguht they should just give up the whole "CSX" thing and change their name to Chessie.

You and me both -- but with a better cat instead of the broken dish.

[Flintlock76]

Overmod

 

 

zugmann

I always thoguht they should just give up the whole "CSX" thing and change their name to Chessie.

 

 

You and me both -- but with a better cat instead of the broken dish.

 

 

How about Chesapeake System?  

[Leo_Ames]

Flintlock76

I like it!  I hope it starts a trend for CSX!  

 

 

The person that broke this news (and has been fairly accurate about the details), said that preliminary plans are for 25 units. Below is a direct paste of the list.

 

B&O

GARR

B&M

RF&P

NC&STL

AWP

Monon

L&N

WM

NYC

C&O

Katy (I thought this was a UP thing)

ACL

PL&E

C&EI

PM

SAL

Clinchfield

P&NR

SCL

Penn Central

SBD family

Chessie System

CR

PAR (Pan Am Railways)

 

He did state that the B&O paint was rushed and that the cab and nose was to be finished in B&O colors after an event. But we now know the paint job is the finished deal. But instead of him being incorrect, perhaps a higher up at CSX liked the blend result so much that they've simply decided to stick with it after seeing it.

 

He also said that Clinchfield should be next, which wasn't the case. But perhaps we'll see that next out after the Chessie unit, indicating his sources weren't too far off the mark and furthering the suggestion that this list has some validity (although plans do change).

 

If accurate, I do wonder why a Katy unit would be done though. And no Erie Lackawanna unit makes sense (I think the extent of ex-EL trackage that they received with their 42% of Conrail was the Oswego branch). 

 

And no Maine Central unit stands out when there's a Boston & Maine unit on the list. I'm not too well versed on Pan Am and the ancestory of each line, but surely some of what CSX now owns and directly operates (Versus the ex B&M Hoosac Tunnel line that is leased to another operating entity) was former Maine Central trackage? 

 

[MidlandMike]

Ayer, MA to Portland, ME is ex-B&M.  MC does seem like an omission.

[ns145]

NS needs a Katy heritage unit.  69 miles of former Katy trackage makes up part of NS' Detroit-KC mainline between Moberly and Hannibal, MO.

CSX operates part of EL's former mainline between Galion and Marion, OH.  This was a joint paired single track operation with NYC/Big Four, but controlled by the EL.  CSX also operates a small portion of EL's Marion Yard.

PRR should be included to represent the west end of the St. Louis Line and the fact that CSX owns the former PRR mainline west of Crestline, OH (leased to the CF&E).

 

[BaltACD]

ns145

NS needs a Katy heritage unit.  69 miles of former Katy trackage makes up part of NS' Detroit-KC mainline between Moberly and Hannibal, MO.

CSX operates part of EL's former mainline between Galion and Marion, OH.  This was a joint paired single track operation with NYC/Big Four, but controlled by the EL.  CSX also operates a small portion of EL's Marion Yard.

PRR should be included to represent the west end of the St. Louis Line and the fact that CSX owns the former PRR mainline west of Crestline, OH (leased to the CF&E).

Back in the day - B&O and PRR had paired operations in two locations with each carrier owning one track and the pair being operated as double track.

This existed between Newark, OH and Columbus with B&O doing the Train Dispatching.  It also existed between Akron, OH and Warwick with the PRR doing the Train Dispatching.

[BaltACD]

Chessie 

[Leo_Ames]

I didn't even notice the absence of the Pennsy in that list. Strange indeed. I wonder if rights issues are behind that if this list proves to be accurate.

A few other small bits and pieces are CSX owned like Woodville to Toledo. All together it must amount to close to 200 miles of former PRR trackage, although some of it like said is out of service or leased out to another operator.

Furthering the CSX connection to the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Pennsy also had trackage rights on a few small pieces of C&O (Toledo to Carleton), B&O (Ravenna to Niles), NYC (Girard Junction to Erie), and C&EI (Terre Haute to Otter Creek Jct). Trackage that CSX as far as I know still owns and operates.

[rdamon]

is being numbered 1973  an indicator of birth year?

[M636C]

rdamon

is being numbered 1973  an indicator of birth year?

 

The B&O locomotive is number 1827, so it's a good bet, but wait for the others...

Peter

[BaltACD]

Leo_Ames

...

Furthering the CSX connection to the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Pennsy also had trackage rights on a few small pieces of C&O (Toledo to Carleton), B&O (Ravenna to Niles), NYC (Girard Junction to Erie), and C&EI (Terre Haute to Otter Creek Jct). Trackage that CSX as far as I know still owns and operates.

When I was a Train Order Operator, I worked both Niles Jct. and Ravenna off the Extra List.  Recall runing PRR trains at Niles Jct when I was working there, don't recall operating any when I was working Ravenna, however, the tracks to access the PRR were in the interlocking.

[azrail]

UP already did a Katy Heritage unit.

[azrail]

And BNSF's 25th anniversary "heritage" paint job sucked....just some stickers of defunct RRs on a regular "pumpkin" paintjob.

[wjstix]

azrail

And BNSF's 25th anniversary "heritage" paint job sucked....just some stickers of defunct RRs on a regular "pumpkin" paintjob.

 

 

I've heard that BNSF originally did intend to paint up diesels for each of the old railroads (GN, NP, ATSF, etc.), but finally decided time and money wouldn't allow it, so settled for adding 'stickers' to a few engines instead.

[YoHo1975]

azrail

And BNSF's 25th anniversary "heritage" paint job sucked....just some stickers of defunct RRs on a regular "pumpkin" paintjob.

 

 

The Pumpkin paintjob IS a heritage paint scheme. It's a Great Northern paint scheme with a few ATSF hints on it. At least that's true for Heritage 1 and Heritage 2. The Swoosh scheme is less so.

 

[MidlandMike]

Leo_Ames

I didn't even notice the absence of the Pennsy in that list. Strange indeed. I wonder if rights issues are behind that if this list proves to be accurate.  ...

I wondered about that too.  I understand that merging railroads aquire the trademarks of the predecessor lines.  While Conrail was split between NS and CSX, I noticed that NS got the PRR reporting marks, and CSX got the NYC reporting marks.  However, NS painted a NYC heritage loco.  Maybe the surviving PC entity kept rights to the trademarks.

[ns145]

NS got one of the best, busiest, and most visible parts of the former NYC.  CSX's only major ex-PRR route is the backwater St. Louis Line.  After Conrail got done rehabbing it, it looked like an ex-NYC line complete with Type G "V" light signals.  Not a lot of PRR heritage or esprit de corps left from what I could tell when I railfanned the line back in the late 80's/early 90's.

[BaltACD]

ns145

NS got one of the best, busiest, and most visible parts of the former NYC.  CSX's only major ex-PRR route is the backwater St. Louis Line.  After Conrail got done rehabbing it, it looked like an ex-NYC line complete with Type G "V" light signals.  Not a lot of PRR heritage or esprit de corps left from what I could tell when I railfanned the line back in the late 80's/early 90's.

However, that PRR line is enough to have 'trashed' the former B&O's St. Louis Division between Cincinnati and E.St. Louis.

[ns145]

BaltACD

 

 

ns145

NS got one of the best, busiest, and most visible parts of the former NYC.  CSX's only major ex-PRR route is the backwater St. Louis Line.  After Conrail got done rehabbing it, it looked like an ex-NYC line complete with Type G "V" light signals.  Not a lot of PRR heritage or esprit de corps left from what I could tell when I railfanned the line back in the late 80's/early 90's.

 

 

However, that PRR line is enough to have 'trashed' the former B&O's St. Louis Division between Cincinnati and E.St. Louis.

Well half out it.  The east portion of the PRR route between Indy and Terre Haute was abandoned by Conrail.  The NYC/Big Four was the real B&O killer.  The only reason the PRR line was kept west of Terre Haute was that it was shorter and had a decent sized yard in East St. Louis (Rose Lake).  Conrail effectively had to "NYC" it in the 1980's to bring it up to modern standards.  As Alfred Perlman once observed, the PRR really was a "wooden-wheeled" railroad.

Also, blame CSX.  While Conrail was investing in routes and improving traffic flows, CSX was doing nothing.  Personally, I think both CSX and NS knew that one day they would eventually snatch Conrail and split it up one way or another.  There was no point in investing in their own directly competing routes.  A lot of CSX's perplexing abandonments in the 1980's make a lot more sense when this eventuality is taken into consideration.

[rdamon]

Seaboard is 1982!

 

 

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

CSX is smart by coming up with heritage units that are a blend of historic and current.  It's distinctive from the NS heritage fleet.

[rdamon]

And the Conrail "Q" is 1976

[mvlandsw]

The first Chessie units came new from EMD in 1972, not 1973.