The next time you put too much Solvaset on your decal and turn it into a Salvadore Dali work of art, take a look at what can happen in the REAL world!!!
I was going through musty boxes of slides and came across this beauty. Taken in July of 1971 probably at Frontier Yard in Buffalo. I knew Penn Central was having budget constraints but the stencil for this car must have been cut by a paint crew in a real hurry, or maybe after a little too much time at the tavern!
I'll have to scout for other photos of PC 220125 and see when or IF it was ever repainted.
I miss the Trains and M-R column about crazy things seen in the real world. This could be a contender!
Enjoy, Ed
Looks kinda, uh, jaunty. I like it.
Perhaps it was a one-off test, and management thought it a bit wild and crazy for a railroad. Especially one that was trying to look solvent. Well, hoping to try.
Ed
Maybe, just maybe — it was one of the cars that wandered onto the LaSalle & Bureau County Railroad's property and when Penn Central retrieved it, they gave it a quickie repaint back into their ownership?
If I recall the LS&BC was subcontracting repair work and they would deem a car as unrepairable and offer to scrap it for the owning railroad. Then they would repaint and renumber it into their own reporting marks and send it on its way, earning revenue for them.
I may be hazy on the details but there was something about a shortline stealing class I cars and renumbering them. The actual count is fuzzy, but ultimately there were 352 boxcars involved!
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=110&dat=19710409&id=iuxOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=C0wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4409,526903&hl=en
Every business student should read The Wreck Of The Penn Central by Daughen and Binzen.
Regards, Ed
Maybe that was the example someone saw when they quipped that the then-new Penn Central logo looked like "worms, mating."
Dave Nelson
That is a relatively new ex-PRR X61e built in 1966, so instead of a complete repaint into PC Green, looks like it got new reporting marks and herald, but you can't tell where the car was repainted, as there is no difference were the old PRR stuff was over painted.
Looks like a nice project to be done.
Rick J
Rule 1: This is my railroad.
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gmpullman Every business student should read The Wreck Of The Penn Central by Daughen and Binzen.
I read it years ago, also not a business student. All the waste. And all those subsidiary companies that are still going. I actually came across business offices once while working in Philly, came off the elevator for the floor my client was on, looked one way, there on the doors PENN CENTRAL CORP.
Remnents of the Reading are now a movie theater chain.
As to bad paint shop - there was an article on the SP in an old issue of Railroad Modeler that I have (yes, Railroad Modeler - not RMC, not MR) that shows a picture of an SP piggyback train, one of the truck trailers on one of the cars just says "SOUTHER PACIFIC", the N being on one of the side doors on the trailer, ony the door was replaced but the lettering not restored before it was released from the shops.
Really bad day? Road crew years ago near my house painted the road with SOTP. Pretty bad when you can't spell a 4 letter word AND it's written right next to the road on the nice red sign.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
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