Railroad's paint names

[kpsdjs]

Hello all,
  Here is a fun question; What are some of the "paint scheam" names from different railroads.
  I am a BIGTIME Southern Pacific fan, and enjoy the diff names. Some examples are; The Bloody Nose, Black Widow, Pumpkin, and "The Worlds Most Beautiful Train" The Daylight.
  These are, of course, all SP. Please share any others, any railroad.

Just For Fun,
Kelly

[GoCanes]

Sounds fun.   I am having a difficult time mastering the real names (Milwaukee Road Orange vs Seaboard Orange, for instance)

[jonathan]

This could be fun, or confusing, when trying to match colors from the prototype.

From my study of the B&O Railroad, the prototype (the real live painters) had a hard time interpreting colors, just like we modelers.

The B&O used "Devils Red" for Cabeese, Royal Blue (B&O Blue) for anything blue and "Red Oxide" or "Bright Red" for box cars during the transition era.

Bright Red has been interpreted as a rusty red oxide and/or a Pinkish Orange depending on which shop painted the equipment, whether it be the prototype or modeler.

After watching the few color film records and viewing the very few color photographs available, I believe the shades are open for personal preference.

Oh... and who knew "graphite" and black had infinite shades of correctness? 

The fact that I'm red/green colorblind doesn't help, either. 

Regards,

Jonathan

[jettrainfan]

War bonnet is the famous ATSF scheme of a chrome white, red and yellow

Blue bonnet is the ATSF freight scheme of blue and yellow

Peach fuzz is a BNSF unit that seems to have a bright orange (more like a faded orange) that is like the earlier paint scheme of BNSF, but you can easily tell the difference if they were side by side.

BN executives are the BNSF SD80macs (correct me if wrong) that are ex. BN units from the early 90s with a green BNSF on the side.

CSX stealth is a gray body with blue lettering

CSX YN1 is like stealth, but has a lighter gray, and has a yellow nose plus yellow lettering.

CSX YN2 has the yellow nose, still light gray, but some of the parts are blue as well (SD40-2s, AC4400s, almost any freight loco CSX owned)

CSX YN3, also known as "dark future" paint has a yellow nose, yellow lettering and the rest of the body is blue.

NS has 2 differnt paint schemes, one plain and the other is a "horse head" whichis like the name, it has a horse head with the paint.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, I've been to berea and heard these names reffered to (and I use them myself) so I think they're the offical names.

[Michigan Railfan]

Amtrak has phases I-V, as well as a few others such as Cascades and Acela.

Canadian National has the 'Zebra Stripe' scheme, which is diagonal white lines going down the side of the engine.

CN also has the 'North America' scheme, which is 'CN' in white on the side with a grey picture of the North American continent.

Those are all I can think of that haven't been mentioned yet.

[jward]

western maryland had 3 different paint schemes for its locomotives in the diesel era.

first was the "fireball"  which was similar to the steam locomotives and used a circular herald with flames coming off it.

next was the "speed lettering" that most people are familiar with: slanted lettering with stripes at either end. most freight cars got painted this way. and lodomotives retained the black paint of the earlier fireball scheme with yellow speed lettering.

last was the "circus" scheme: red and white body with black roof and speed lettering. cabooses were also painted similarly.

these were superseded by chessie system yellow when they took over the western maryland, but wm locomotives were still marked as wm on the cab.

[RAM]

War bonnet is the famous ATSF scheme of a chrome white, red and yellow

Blue bonnet is the ATSF freight scheme of blue and yellow
I may be wrong, but I thought the ATSF Blue bonnets were the f units taken out of passenger service and red was replaced with blue.  Most of them got yellow to replace the red.

[kpsdjs]

Yeess!

  This is far more fun tan arguing about,...well, anything!

  I have all the SP scheams that I originally mentioned. I also have both "War Bonnet" A+B and "Blue Bonnet" from ATSF.

  jettrainfan mentions ("CSX YN3, also known as "dark future" paint has a yellow nose, yellow lettering and the rest of the body is blue.")

  There is also a "Bright Future" from CSX. I wonder what there thinking was, to name their trains "Dark Future"? Were they worried about their future existence? Seems kind of meccabe, or dark...punintentional.

"Fireball", & "Horse Head" & "Cicus"... I love it. This gives us all a more connected feeling with the "Railroad's" themselves. Brings personality to our models, and gave me something FUN to write about.

  Okay, let's not stop now! I know there are more. I am not sure but I think the SP scheam on Backmann's NEWLY offered "Alco S4 Diesel" is called "Safety First"

Laughs,
Kelly

[jward]

i heard that sp switcher scheme called "tiger stripe" and santa fe's old black and silver scheme called "zebra stripe"......

[kpsdjs]

i heard that sp switcher scheme called "tiger stripe" and santa fe's old black and silver scheme called "zebra stripe"......

j...Cool. I believe you are right about "Tiger Stripe" being that paint. Although Blink_182_Fan mentioned, "Canadian National has the 'Zebra Stripe' scheme".
   I know not, which Road actually claims "Zebra Stripe".
   Who then claims the "Safety First" scheam?

Looovin' It, Gimme More,
Kelly

[jward]

if i am not mistaken, santa fe discontinued their zebra stripe well before cn started theirs. santa fe's sd24s were the last delivered in zebra, the gp20s came in blue and yellow. that would put the end of santa fe's zebra around 1960.

when i visited toronto in 1981, there were still quite a few cn units running around in the black with red cab and nose which preceded their zebra. btw, i have also heard cn's herald referred to as either "noodle" or "lazy 3"......

[rogertra]

The CN "Noodle" is a classic design and began a modernisation trend in many corporate logos.  The Nike "Flash" is an example of the infuence of the CN noodle design.

[kpsdjs]

 Yes 

   Thanks for the input.

   Isn't this more fun than discusing radii?

   jettrainfan mentioned "Peach fuzz is a BNSF unit". Is that just the colour, or is it their "scheam line" name?

Too Cool,
Kelly

[ebtnut]

We here in the northeast termed the Penn Central's PC logo as "two worms in love". 

[jward]

The CN "Noodle" is a classic design and began a modernisation trend in many corporate logos.  The Nike "Flash" is an example of the infuence of the CN noodle design.

and the bnsf flying wedgie as well.....

oh for the days when corporate logos meant something.