Favorite trains

[RedImperator]

I think the fact that the GG1 wasn't especially pretty added to its charm. It managed to look good without being flashy the way the streamliners or carbody diesels were. They were tough, fast, powerful machines that are still symbolic of railroading in the Northeast. They even managed to look good in that hideous white "CR" on flat black paint paint that Conrail slapped on a lot of the units it inherited (it would have been interesting to see them in blue and white with the rainbow).

[Sea Skimmer]

White CR lettering on a black background? Something like this one?
http://www.spikesys.com/Bin/GG1/Paint/gg1_cr3.gif

I don't think it looks all that bad. Though if you look on the page its from, there's some redefinitions of ugly.

[RedImperator]

White CR lettering on a black background? Something like this one?
http://www.spikesys.com/Bin/GG1/Paint/gg1_cr3.gif

I don't think it looks all that bad. Though if you look on the page its from, there's some redefinitions of ugly.

That doesn't look bad. What they actually looked like in real life was a different story. The paint jobs they got were shoddy--you could clearly make out the Penn Central markings underneath, for starters--and the black paint they used looked more like accumulated filth. Conrail inherited a few E and F units and painted them in the same scheme, where they looked even worse.

Part of the problem is that Conrail got a shitload of bag equipment and bad track that it had to either repair or replace quickly, and didn't have time for fancy paint jobs in the first few years. All their equipment looked like that in the beginning, but once they got their feet under them, they switched to the blue and white livery which, in my opinion, looked pretty good. The old stuff like the GG1s and F units never got the blue paint job and went to the scrapyard in the black and white scheme.

[Zoink]

Mag-Lev rulz.