Lehigh Valley RR Snowbird Scheme - anyone have more details?

[Kozzie]

In Favorite Diesel thread, msernak mentioned Alco C628 in snowbird scheme -any details of that? I find the huge variety of fallen flag liveries very interesting.[8D]

Kozzie

[adrianspeeder]

The snowbird scheme was all white with black stripes on the 628s. They were painted when the lv was painting everything willynilly. Instead of the classic lv red with dark stripes, the c420s came in blue and yellow, other units were painted a BRIGHT red.
The snowbirds surcame to what every white loco suffers from, KCS ahem, lookin' real dirty. I remember reading that the snowbirds looked like big city pidgins. Most were repainted red later
I'll find some pics.

Adrianspeeder

[Kozzie]

Thanks adrianspeeder![:)]

Large areas of white on diesel locos sure a bad idea. Diesel fumes alone make the upper parts pretty grimy real quick.

In the state (New South Wales) just below my home state (Queensland) they had all state passenger serives running under the name "Countrylink" with a very good looking two tone blue scheme, but they goofed with the tops of the locos - you guessed it !
All white - and white appeared basically only along the upper part of the locos!

The dark blue used lower down would have been much better in those areas...

I reckon a combination of blue seems to work (but no light blue along the top!)

Has there been a discussion about the best loco colour schemes before?

Kozzie

[adrianspeeder]

Hey Kozzie, Here are some links.

This is the "classic LV" red on a NW-2
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_lv185.jpg

The "snowbird" on a C-628
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_lv628.jpg

A C-628 repainted red
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/lv628.jpg

Some "Yellow Jacket " C-420s
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_lv407.jpg

And the odd duck "Cigar Band" GP-9
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_lv301.jpg
only this GP-9 and an RS-3 were painted like that

Hope this helps,
Adrianspeeder

[Kozzie]

adrianspeeder, those links are very helpful - I think the blue and yellow looks the best. What do you reckon? [tup]

Kozzie

[adrianspeeder]

The blue and yellow looks nice when they were clean, but looked rather funky when they got dirty. My personal favorite is the bright red the c-420s were repainted to.

Adrianspeeder

[coalminer3]

LV was always interesting for it's variety of colors. I recall seeing snowbirds in the shops at Sayre and also out on the road - fine looking when they were clean as othe posts suggest. Also, I could never get used to the flag facing the "wrong way."

work safe

[Kozzie]

Hey adrianspeeder & coalminer 3!

Did any of the model manufacturers like Atlas, Lifelike, etc do runs of LV locos in any of the LV liveries?

I ask because I prefer to run fallen flags or current smaller RR comanies especially on my club's exhibition layout when we exhibit at model railway shows.
Plenty in the crowd notice it when we run something different to the big Class 1 companies...and they enjoy it ! A few make commetns to us about it - so it is noticed.

Downunder, I've seen a few LV freight cars int he local model train/hobby shops...but as yet no locos...(having a much smaller population base, I don't think we get imported the same variety you lot 'up over' would get..[sigh])

Cheers

Kozzie

[Anonymous]

The LV did indeed run many paint schemes, but the Tuscan Red probably was the most often seen. There are plenty of locos and cars available in HO at least. I have 10 different locos and alomst 100 different cars with LV schemes... only a few are custom... most came from dealers. You have to hunt through catalogs, eBay and train shows, but you can find them.

[scottychaos]

The blue and yellow looks nice when they were clean, but looked rather funky when they got dirty. My personal favorite is the bright red the c-420s were repainted to.

Adrianspeeder

The LV yellowjacket C420's were not blue and yellow..they were grey and yellow.

the grey might look bluish in some photos, but if so its just bad color reproduction of the photo.. its not blue, its pure neutral grey.

There was no LV diesel paintscheme that used blue as any part of its makeup.

Scot

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Kozzie,

Besides the fallen flags from the USA, it looks like you've got enough fallen flags just from Down Under to keep up the variety at exhibitions.

[HO Hobbyist]

adrianspeeder

Hey Kozzie, Here are some links.

This is the "classic LV" red on a NW-2
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_lv185.jpg

The "snowbird" on a C-628
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_lv628.jpg

A C-628 repainted red
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/lv628.jpg

Some "Yellow Jacket " C-420s
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_lv407.jpg

And the odd duck "Cigar Band" GP-9
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_lv301.jpg
only this GP-9 and an RS-3 were painted like that

Hope this helps,
Adrianspeeder

 

 

I am aware that the post I am commenting on is over 15 years old.

Adrianspeeder, the "Classic LV" scheme you refer to on the NW2 is on of several variations of the common LV paint scheme. Here are the all varitations of the "Classic LV" scheme.

Cornell Red with Three Black Stripes: https://www.american-rails.com/images/LVFAs.jpg  

Tuscan Red: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ac/49/25/ac49251f8bc89bb73d2f6a151aa6d543.jpg

Late Cornell Red (1970's): http://s3.amazonaws.com/rrpa_photos/22985/s253.jpg 

Additionally, the aforementioned variations of the "Classic LV" scheme had variations of the varitations. There were different colored handrails on some, different curvature to the stripes on some, and different configurations for the front of the 70's Cornell Red. Some locomotives had full black and white tiger stripes (U23B), while others had just white stripes, and a few locomotives just had the diamond and one gold stripe, like on the back of NS 8104.