NS Heritage Units


Littlefoot14

Active Member
From Trains Newswire...

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. As Union Pacific did a half-decade ago, NS plans to create a fleet of heritage locomotives, though NS’s plans are bigger: 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
• Lehigh Valley (red)
• New Haven (not definite yet)
• New York Central
• Nickel Plate Road
• Norfolk & Western (blue)
• Penn Central
• Pennsylvania (Tuscan Red)
• Pittsburgh & West Virginia
• Reading
• Savannah & Atlanta
• Southern
• Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia
• Virginian
• Wabash

NS plans to recreate the paint schemes as accurately as possible. By contrast, UP used the old railroads’ logos and colors, but created new interpretations on the old liveries.

http://trn.trains.com/Railroad News...t heritage fleet.aspx?commentPage=2&#comments

All I can say, as an NS fan, I am extremely proud of Norfolk Southern for doing something like this, and that I cannot wait to see these unvieled. :D
 
I bet Intermountain is happy they did the "fantasy" schemes on there ES44ACs. I wonder if they had "inside" info?
 
18 Accurate heritage locomotives will be a nice sight in the east. I'm glad they want to make them accurate as possible, and not add their own twist like UP did. I still say the MKT heritage unit should have been painted green & yellow!

-Jeff
 
This is fantastic news. Go NS!

Makes me wonder if CSX will ever jump on the bandwagon. The sight of freshly painted L&N units rolling thru Birmingham would warm my heart.;)
 
I just dont understand the New Haven? Does anyone know if Pan Am with joint venture with NS have former New Haven trackage let alone any NH equipment?
 
I just dont understand the New Haven? Does anyone know if Pan Am with joint venture with NS have former New Haven trackage let alone any NH equipment?

When NS sucked up CR who sucked up PC they inherited those roads too.

CR_heritage.gif
 
Pretty cool diagram. When I think NS heritage, i just think of what made NS as Conrail had already existed at the same time as NS and that is all those southern railroads, not the conrail stuff.
 
some of those heritage units that they are going to do are parts of what made up conrail. like penn central, penn, new york central and new haven and reading were all part of conrail. i dont see why they are going to waste paint on a conrail unit when they could just leave one that they have not painted yet conrail blue and put NS on it somewhere. and btw i was thinking about painting some engines up myself like up did and now i dont have to waste time doing it when they can be done for me
 
Mark summed up the geneology quite well. As far as if NH equip is still in use by NS is unlikely. When PC absorbed the NH the NH equipment was for the most part way beyond any good. Much of it was scrapped within a short time after the merger. Of the units that were kept active very few made it into Conrail and some were absorbed by Amtrak for yard duty. By the time NS and CSX became the heirs of all that fallen flag equipment, ex NH units were long gone one way or another.

CSX, Amtrak, and P&W now run over the former NH trackage along with a few short lines and local commuter rails. I've never seen any NS power around here but then I don't spend a lot of time running arond looking for them.
 
Depends who you ask the question too. On the East Coast it would be Providence and Worcester (PWRR) which is a shortline serving MA, RI, NY, and CT.

On the West Coast it would be the Portland and Western (PNWR) in Oregon.
 
This is fantastic news. Go NS!

Makes me wonder if CSX will ever jump on the bandwagon. The sight of freshly painted L&N units rolling thru Birmingham would warm my heart.;)

Or some Clinchfield units rolling through the mountains of NC and TN!
 
would be nice if all the railroads payed a tribute to the fallen flags that got them to where they are today. CSX, BNSF, CN, CP just to name a few i know BNSF did some heritage paint schemes with the old paints and BNSF on them but that dont count. I mean paint them up for the GN, SP&S, ect.
 
Smaller local roads have done that. The state of Connecticut DOT ran at least 1 ex New Haven FL9 in a fresh McGinnis era paint scheme. Brookville Locomotive has painted a few of their BL-20 rebuilds in what they imagined a New Haven scheme would look like today. Not a historic scheme but it pays tribute.

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