Passenger Trains > Question About Amtrak Cascades #468

I was wandering around near Seattle’s Amtrak facilities Saturday and noticed Amtrak Cascades’ F59PHI #468 has recently been repainted and now looks different than the other F59PHIs. The area around the forward windshield went from brown to black, the cool “Cascades” logo went missing, and the “Amtrak” logo is repositioned.

New marketing plan? Ran out of “Cascades” logos? Artistic license on the part of the painters? Anybody in the know?

TIA to responders…

-Tom

I've also noticed that around the same time that AMTK 468 was repainted with the big Amtrak logo... some of the Talgo trainsets picked up large black logos for the Washington and Oregon departments of transportation on their power and baggage cars. I know that both of the Series 8 trainsets owned by Oregon DOT have the logos. I assume the 3 WashDOT owned Series VI trainsets have the logos... while the 2 Amtrak owned Series VI trainsets do not.

Taking a wild guess... it may have to do with the looming PRIIA deadline.
Amtrak may be trying to show what equipment it owns (the locomotives & two trainsets) just in case anyone thinks to start shopping around for a new operator for the line.

Here are some links to photos of the Series VI trainsets with the logos:
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,3138591,3138591#3138591
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,3104341,3104341#3104341

Ricky Courtney
Seattle, WA

The state supposedly has been hunting around for a new operator when the time comes. I haven't heard anything in the last year about it though so I figure that Amtrak will continue to run it.