Saturday, February 18, 2012

NS to debut heritage fleet

Received the following via email.

Norfolk Southern to debut heritage fleet

Published: February 16, 2012

NORFOLK, Va. - To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Norfolk & Western/Southern merger in 1982, Norfolk Southern plans to honor many of the railroads that make up the present day NS system. Norfolk Southern plans to create a fleet of heritage locomotives: 18 units honoring a wide variety of predecessor roads.

The locomotives will be 10 SD70ACes on order from EMD that are being constructed at its Muncie, Ind., plant, and eight ES44ACs from an upcoming order for 25 units from GE. While EMD will paint all 10 heritage units in-house, NS forces will paint the eight GEs. The railroad's Altoona, Pa., shop will paint five, while the Chattanooga, Tenn., shop will handle three heritage units.

The 18 predecessor railroads selected for heritage paint are:

. Central of Georgia
. Conrail
. Erie
. Erie Lackawanna
. Leigh Valley (red)
. New Haven (not definite yet)
. New York Central
. Nickel Plate Road
. Norfolk & Western (blue)
. Penn Central
. Pennsylvania (Tuscan Red)
. Pittsburg & West Virginia
. Reading
. Savanna & Atlanta
. Southern
. Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia
. Virginian
. Wabash

NS plans to recreate the paint schemes as accurately as possible. By contrast Union Pacific, a half-decade ago painted several units to honor the merged companies that make up today's UP, used the old railroads' logos and colors, but created new interpretations on the old liveries.

(From Trains Newswire)