Western Railroad Discussion > I mean, how grungy can a locomotive look?

Heading home from work this evening saw headlights coming northbound while I was southbound at South Seattle, WA. UP headed for Seattle. Turned around and got up to the S. Albro Place overpass in time to catch the I-G4SE with the 5790/5678/4352/3089. Well, if nothing else the lead two units are conversation pieces. I mean, how grungy can a locomotive look? And two of them in a row! But I did like the numerical sequence of the 5-6-7-8.

Brian Ambrose
Renton, WA

---

---

---

Nice photo in #1, and yes, cool number
Brian Stevens

Those are CLEAN compared to what SP use to look like!

Is this grungy enough? RS-10 taken in Calgary summer of 1979.

cvrrr

---

Nice shot in #1. The graffiti seems to hit everything these days. Nice catch of the UP 5678.

Larry

You should see how they look on the inside. 

CS

Oh boy, here come the "paint doesn't pull freight" commenters.  That tired, worn out saying may be true, but public image is worth a lot.  You don't see filthy, faded FedEx or UPS trucks and planes, you don't see filthy trucking company equipment, and businesses spend millions annually for landscaping around their buildings.  Image does matter.  It's a shame UP has let their power get to the point you see as many dirty and faded locomotives as you do clean ones.   



 

RuleG Wrote: > ...  What are you talking about?  Nobody has posted any such comments ...

Did he SAY such comments have already been posted? No. He merely predicted "here they come". And based on numerous past threads on the subject he's 100% right to make his prediction. And as far as the "paint doesn't haul freight" line of reasoning, neither do filthy American Flags. But that dosen't make it any less disgraceful to continue to let them be seen in such horrible shape...

Lance/199

It's great watching some of the cameras and getting excited over the NS leader which turns out to be UP. But evidently Wall Street
doesn't care how dirty your motive power is as long as it pulls trains.

Out 

Always fascinated me how different operations looked at locomotive appearance.   ATSF had a reputation for cleanliness, to a point.   Sometimes they were just spotless, and other times, well, if you were an F-unit in Texas in the 70's  or an SD24 on the Valley working Tehachapi, good luck with that.   But road power making it to where there was a high-pressure washer terminal had it pretty good.   I never, ever, ever saw PC wash anything, if it was clean it was relatively new.  Conrail patch jobs, who remembers those?  We had a GP40 locally that had CR patch, PC, and NYC lettering all visible at once, and an LV unit that looked like it was done with crayon.

There's grime and grime.   When you start spewing black oil out a turbo, and carbon out the stack, and there's sump oil running down the sill....that's a little different.   My very last memory of an E-L RS3 was in 1976, where an idling one at Jamestown, NY (post-Conrail) was hemmoraging oil out the stack, 'burping' and coughing, and black oil all over the sides of the unit and dripping off the side sill.....never saw it running, and never saw another RS after that.   Sometimes it's as bad as it looks.

Other thing is paint.   Paint is not paint.   ATSF's CF7's out of Cleburne deteriorated rapidly, rust up through the primer, fade, peel, you name it.  I don't think they ever clearcoated them myself.  I'll put this up against anything you can come up with for a 'running' locomotive:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3930746

 The notorious GE BNSF "Peaches" that faded to a light pink were the result of defective paint from a contract painter in Corry, PA (Thunderport) that ended up going bankrupt - used Glyptol instead of Imron, and GE got hung for all the warranty repaints.  Man, did those ever look bad.   

https://www.railpictures.net/photo/224351/

 



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/20 13:48 by randgust.