Never understood those color choices Ingram and minions made for "The Rock". White is never, ever a good paint in commercial transportation use.
Yes, but the worst in my book was PennCentral, a railroad with about a gazillion grade crossings, trying to make their locomotives invisible with that basic black paint. It was like they were so determined to fail they went into mourning from Day One.
Their choice of el cheapo black showed no flair, no imagination. It was as if they could not be bothered by making any positive statement to the public of a bright future coming. Instead, drab black. A signal of the bleak future coming too soon.
Exactly. Of course, NS favors black too. But at least they use an impressive herald--one that also increases visibility at crossings quite a bit. That makes a difference. They make basic black look good.
At least Conrail was sandwiched between PC and NS. For at least the time being, they gave us something brighter to look at. Or at least a mix of patched and faded schemes from it's constituents. Here we have CR GP30 2181 (ex-Reading 5513) leading former PC GP40 3220 through Buffalo, NY on March 13, 1977 (Marty Mann) Conrail RS11 7610, ex-Lehigh Valley 401, May 28, 1977 (????)
Conrail U25B 2552, ex-PC, nee-NYC, July 1976 (????) Conrail U25C 6507, ex-PC, nee-PRR, August 1978 (Lon Coone?)
Cool stuff! In its early days, CR was something like ATK was in its infancy, where any combination of colors could appear anywhere. Boy, that PC black paint sure sucked up available light.
The "Dark Ages", so to speak, of the Northeast railroads...... Whoever got the commission from selling all that black paint, must've been rich!
Had to do a lot of exposure tweaking on the PC photos to get them to look somewhat balanced. I could've done a better job, but they're an improvement over what they looked like before. Conrail U23B 2785, ex-Lehigh Valley 509, Springfield, MA, January 16, 1978 (Joseph R. Snopek) Conrail C636 6784, ex-PC 6334, March 1977 (????)
Another big ALCO, this time Conrail C628 6740, ex-PC, December 1977 (????) Conrail SD45 6077, former Erie Lackawanna 3612, Erie, PA, November 12, 1977 (David S. Albrewczynski)
Conrail C424 2497 (ex-Reading 5208) shoves a wrecking train in Erie, PA, September 4, 1977 (David S. Albrewczynski) Conrail C628 6721 (ex-Lehigh Valley 625), December 1977 (????)
Conrail T6 9845, ex-PC, nee-PRR 8425, July 1977 (????) Conrail GP35 2297 leads a freight through Euclid, Ohio on August 16, 1977 (????)
Conrail E8A 4014, ex-EL, nee-Erie 825, Chicago, IL, March 26, 1977 (Dennis A. Smolinski) Conrail SW-1 8515, ex-PC, nee-PRR, December 1977 (????)
Santa Fe GP38 3520, June 13, 1974 (Bob Jordan) Conrail U36C 6598, ex-EL 3327, Springfield, MA, April 14, 1977 (Joseph R. Snopek)
