Passenger Trains > Amtrak Phase VI vs VII - Why?

I know this is certainly low on the scale of importance, especially compared to equipment availability, on-time performance, and rider experience, but it's something that still is a cost to Amtrak. Between the 50th anniversary and the order for the ALC-42s, a new paint scheme was announced (Phase VI). P42 108 and the first gaggle of Chargers were in this scheme, but then somewhere around 310 a "Phase VII" scheme showed up. Is there any backstory to the change? It certainly seems like an odd change, especially given the budgetary concerns of Amtrak.

It was always planned that way. 300-309 in phase VI (exception of 301 in day-1) and 310 beyond is in the new livery phase VII. 

sethamtrak Wrote:
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> It was always planned that way. 300-309 in phase
> VI (exception of 301 in day-1) and 310 beyond is
> in the new livery phase VII. 

yep everyone knows that when your corporate s**t is hitting the fan, the right thing to do is come up with a new livery. That will fix everything wrong with the organization.

WP17

It certainly worked for the Rock Island! Oh wait...

WP17 Wrote:
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> sethamtrak Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > It was always planned that way. 300-309 in
> phase
> > VI (exception of 301 in day-1) and 310 beyond
> is
> > in the new livery phase VII. 
>
> yep everyone knows that when your corporate s**t
> is hitting the fan, the right thing to do is come
> up with a new livery. That will fix everything
> wrong with the organization.
>
> WP17

Posted from Android

Well for whatever reason for the change, your really not going to see a financial change just because they changed the scheme. Part of the cost of the locomotive is paint. Prep, primer and x number gallons of paint. The VII paint is actually a bit less labor intensive, less masking, but like I said its all included in the cost. Now if they repaint the newly painted phase VI units, that is a real cost. Same goes for repainting the GEs providing they are scheduled for paint anyway.

I'd imagine there's at least some cost somewhere (design firm?) for the scheme. Mainly, I was just curious as to why the change occurred, especially given how long Phase V has lasted.

The search function works great. There was an in-depth discussion including links to relevant websites containing the full explanation.

Yes it does! However, it also requires discussion beyond just a link to a video, which was about all that came out of the first round of discussion. I didn't catch that Donnelly was in that video providing the relevant info: Phase VII was the plan all along but was not finalized in time for the initial deliveries. So instead a "Phase VI" was quickly developed for the 9 ALCs (and the P42).

Now the answer is even easier to find in search 🙂

> yep everyone knows that when your corporate s**t
> is hitting the fan, the right thing to do is come
> up with a new livery. That will fix everything
> wrong with the organization.
>
> WP17

Look at The Rock.