Union Pacific Paint Schemes

[MQT1223]

When did UP paint diesels black with yellow lettering? I've seen a few pics of their NW2's with this scheme and I never knew such a scheme existed. Was this an early paint before the grey and yellow was universally adopted?

[ConrailMan5]

When did UP paint diesels black with yellow lettering? I've seen a few pics of their NW2's with this scheme and I never knew such a scheme existed. Was this an early paint before the grey and yellow was universally adopted?

Provide a picture maybe?

[MQT1223]

When did UP paint diesels black with yellow lettering? I've seen a few pics of their NW2's with this scheme and I never knew such a scheme existed. Was this an early paint before the grey and yellow was universally adopted?

Provide a picture maybe?

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/0 ... 159154.jpg
http://www.broadway-limited.com/images/ ... 15of57.png

This one has been restored to its as delivered paint scheme. Broadway Limited models one of these in HO scale. There is a photo of the real deal and the model provided above.

[ConrailMan5]

It appears that starting in 1940 for a brief period, the black and yellow was UP's switcher scheme
http://www.uphs.org/Dieselpaint.htm

[CSX_CO]

If it interests you so much, maybe you should as the question on a UP oriented group?

[ConrailMan5]

If it interests you so much, maybe you should as the question on a UP oriented group?

Or google it as I did... That being said, to turn this into discussion rather than a dead end thread, was there any particular reason early in dieselization that roads preferred black on switchers only? Santa fe zebra stripes comes to mind.

[MQT1223]

If it interests you so much, maybe you should as the question on a UP oriented group?

Or google it as I did... That being said, to turn this into discussion rather than a dead end thread, was there any particular reason early in dieselization that roads preferred black on switchers only? Santa fe zebra stripes comes to mind.

I was only curious and was in the moment so I threw the question out there. There are some very knowledgeable people that are members of this site. Maybe because steam oriented minds still ran the railroads during dieselization? Black was for the freight haulers, everything else was for the fancy passenger trains? Kind of like how the streamlined steam locomotives got the fancy paint schemes and the switchers and freight engines got basic black. Of course there were always exceptions, but I think this was the norm. I could be way wrong on this so don't quote me on it.

[Bulby]

was there any particular reason early in dieselization that roads preferred black on switchers only? Santa fe zebra stripes comes to mind.

Black is easier to keep clean? In addition, the storehouse would almost always have Black in stock, whereas the more "fancy" colors were not always on hand. In addition, even then, the multi-colored "passenger" schemes were expensive to paint compared to plain Black.

[ConrailMan5]

was there any particular reason early in dieselization that roads preferred black on switchers only? Santa fe zebra stripes comes to mind.

Black is easier to keep clean? In addition, the storehouse would almost always have Black in stock, whereas the more "fancy" colors were not always on hand. In addition, even then, the multi-colored "passenger" schemes were expensive to paint compared to plain Black.

I figured that maybe the cleanliness aspect of I was a factor, but switchers were the great new innovation in railroading. They replaced the steam engine, and with the way railroads liked to splash their logos around for publicity's sake I figured maybe they would be a bit more vibrant everywhere, even on the switchers.
also I just thought of something. Much of the early dieselization occurred during the wartime years, so maybe there were some wartime restrictions on paint and the likes?

[MQT1223]

was there any particular reason early in dieselization that roads preferred black on switchers only? Santa fe zebra stripes comes to mind.

Black is easier to keep clean? In addition, the storehouse would almost always have Black in stock, whereas the more "fancy" colors were not always on hand. In addition, even then, the multi-colored "passenger" schemes were expensive to paint compared to plain Black.

I figured that maybe the cleanliness aspect of I was a factor, but switchers were the great new innovation in railroading. They replaced the steam engine, and with the way railroads liked to splash their logos around for publicity's sake I figured maybe they would be a bit more vibrant everywhere, even on the switchers.
also I just thought of something. Much of the early dieselization occurred during the wartime years, so maybe there were some wartime restrictions on paint and the likes?

Or so the enemy couldn't see from above during World War Two. Like the SP put these special visors on their locomotive headlights at the time to keep the light focused down. Maybe the Orange Daylight locomotives blended in better at night or something like that. Black seemed to be the norm there for a while.

[Bulby]

was there any particular reason early in dieselization that roads preferred black on switchers only? Santa fe zebra stripes comes to mind.

Black is easier to keep clean? In addition, the storehouse would almost always have Black in stock, whereas the more "fancy" colors were not always on hand. In addition, even then, the multi-colored "passenger" schemes were expensive to paint compared to plain Black.

I figured that maybe the cleanliness aspect of I was a factor, but switchers were the great new innovation in railroading. They replaced the steam engine, and with the way railroads liked to splash their logos around for publicity's sake I figured maybe they would be a bit more vibrant everywhere, even on the switchers.
also I just thought of something. Much of the early dieselization occurred during the wartime years, so maybe there were some wartime restrictions on paint and the likes?

SP painted some of the GS series 4-8-4s (44xx series) in black during the war, but that was mostly a counter-submarine measure, same with the headlight visor. Pretty hard to put an aircraft over the west coast from Japan.

Dieselization actually slowed during WWII, since many railroads had to take steam locomotives since production of diesel engines was taken up by the military. For the most part the only diesels that EMD built during the war were FTs, with a few E6s and switchers at the beginning of the war (that were on order when war broke out) and E7s and switchers at the very end. ALCO was only allowed to build switchers and steam, Baldwin and Lima only built steam.

The UP scheme, for example, that started this thread dates to 1940, so wartime restrictions wouldn't have affected it.

[MQT1223]

was there any particular reason early in dieselization that roads preferred black on switchers only? Santa fe zebra stripes comes to mind.

Black is easier to keep clean? In addition, the storehouse would almost always have Black in stock, whereas the more "fancy" colors were not always on hand. In addition, even then, the multi-colored "passenger" schemes were expensive to paint compared to plain Black.

I figured that maybe the cleanliness aspect of I was a factor, but switchers were the great new innovation in railroading. They replaced the steam engine, and with the way railroads liked to splash their logos around for publicity's sake I figured maybe they would be a bit more vibrant everywhere, even on the switchers.
also I just thought of something. Much of the early dieselization occurred during the wartime years, so maybe there were some wartime restrictions on paint and the likes?

SP painted some of the GS series 4-8-4s (44xx series) in black during the war, but that was mostly a counter-submarine measure, same with the headlight visor. Pretty hard to put an aircraft over the west coast from Japan.

Dieselization actually slowed during WWII, since many railroads had to take steam locomotives since production of diesel engines was taken up by the military. For the most part the only diesels that EMD built during the war were FTs, with a few E6s and switchers at the beginning of the war (that were on order when war broke out) and E7s and switchers at the very end. ALCO was only allowed to build switchers and steam, Baldwin and Lima only built steam.

The UP scheme, for example, that started this thread dates to 1940, so wartime restrictions wouldn't have affected it.[/quote]

And... for those of you out there I did find something on the Black Paint Scheme, although it is difficult to find. The black paint scheme with yellow lettering was only in use from 1940 until 1948, when at the time UP adopted the paint scheme that we still see today. So every other engine on the roster was painted yellow and grey to promote the new streamlined trains that UP was introducing at the time. So there, I found the info but most websites overlook the black paint scheme because it was not widely used. ONLY THE SWITCHERS, which would've mostly been NW2's and a few SW series switchers would've worn this. All of UP's E and F units came with yellow and grey from the factory.

[cnw8835]

Paint history info from the Utah Rails page...

The first use of the black switcher scheme was actually on the NW2 demonstrator from EMC, numbered as UP 1000, received for a six month demonstration period that ended in March 1940, when UP decided to buy the unit. During that demonstration period, UP 1000 had multi-colored Overland shields on both cab sides.

All switch locomotives delivered between 1940 and 1947 (when the yellow and gray scheme became standard for switching locomotives), were delivered in the black switcher paint scheme. Included were the EMD NW2s 1000-1075, Alco S-2 1036-1054 (later renumbered to 1100-1118) and 1119-1153, Baldwin VO-1000s 1055-1060 (later renumbered to 1200-1205), Fairbanks Morse H10-44s 1300-1304, and GE 44 ton 1399. Until 1953, locomotives were lettered with "D.S." prefixes on their numbers, denoting "Diesel Switch", similar to the "M" character in the road numbers of the road's Streamliner passenger motive power, which denoted "Motor".

http://www.utahrails.net/up/up-diesel-p ... ic-era.php

[MQT1223]

Paint history info from the Utah Rails page...

The first use of the black switcher scheme was actually on the NW2 demonstrator from EMC, numbered as UP 1000, received for a six month demonstration period that ended in March 1940, when UP decided to buy the unit. During that demonstration period, UP 1000 had multi-colored Overland shields on both cab sides.

All switch locomotives delivered between 1940 and 1947 (when the yellow and gray scheme became standard for switching locomotives), were delivered in the black switcher paint scheme. Included were the EMD NW2s 1000-1075, Alco S-2 1036-1054 (later renumbered to 1100-1118) and 1119-1153, Baldwin VO-1000s 1055-1060 (later renumbered to 1200-1205), Fairbanks Morse H10-44s 1300-1304, and GE 44 ton 1399. Until 1953, locomotives were lettered with "D.S." prefixes on their numbers, denoting "Diesel Switch", similar to the "M" character in the road numbers of the road's Streamliner passenger motive power, which denoted "Motor".

http://www.utahrails.net/up/up-diesel-p ... ic-era.php

Thats funny I must've overlooked this because I read the exact same article. Good find Jon.