Green and Yellow on CSX in Akron

BNSF SD40-2 No. 7018, still in its Burlington Northern livery, and Union Pacific GP38-2 No. 746 are leading an eastbound CSX auto rack train through Akron on April 28, 2006.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

UP Tweaks New Locomotive Livery

Union Pacific has tweaked the design of its new locomotive scheme by changing the design of the American flag that appears on the flanks of the nose.

The flag will now feature the waving design similar to the one that has adorned the long hood for the past 20 years.

UP also has reduced the size of the herald that appears on the locomotive nose.

In an earlier announcement UP had said it was moving the flag because the flag decals applied to the long hood did not stand up well to wear and tear.

Coming Into Camden

Led by a Union Pacific unit, an eastbound Norfolk Southern merchandise train rolls into Camden, Ohio, on the New Castle District in the southwest corner of the state. The train is crossing Barnetts Mill Road on the north edge of town. There is a passing siding here and a westbound was sitting in the siding having been there for several hours awaiting a new crew. The image was made April 2, 2022.

UP Releases Photos of New Locomotive Livery

Union Pacific has released two photographs of the new locomotive livery that is now making it way into the system.

The new look tweaks the existing livery by moving the U.S. flag to the locomotive nose, dropping the wings from the nose, enlarging the UP shield on the nose, and reviving the practice of placing in red letters the UP name on the locomotive’s long hood.

UP operates about 7,400 locomotives and has said it will take some time before they are repainted into the new look.

In a related development, news reports indicate the Class 1 carrier is launching a $1 billion program with Pittsburgh-based Wabtec to rebuild 600 older UP locomotives.

Wabtec told the Associated Press that this is the single biggest investment in locomotive modernization it has undertaken.

The locomotive manufacturer is working with Norfolk Southern in a similar program to rebuild 330 Dash 9-44CW units into AC44C6M diesels by 2025.

UP Tweaks Locomotive Livery

Union Pacific is tweaking its locomotive livery.

Locomotives will continue to be painted Armour yellow and gray with red trim, but the American flag decal is being downsized and moved from the flanks to the side of the locomotive nose ahead of the cab.

It is the first change UP has made to its livery in more than 20 years.

The long hood also will feature red “Union Pacific” lettering.

As reported by Trains magazine on its website, UP officials said they moved the flag because it did not wear well on the long hood. UP began placing American flags on the long hoods of its locomotives in 2001.

Also changing will be the front of the locomotive nose. Currently, UP locomotives wear wings with the company shield.

But the wings bend around to the side of the nose, which would infringe on the new location for the flag. So UP has decided to increase the size of the shield on the nose, but drop the wings.

It will take time to introduce the new design to UP’s fleet of more than 7,000 locomotives.

Locomotives will be repainted as they enter a shop for an overhaul or to repair wreck damage.

UP is inviting trackside photographers to tag their photographs of the new look locomotives on social media with @Union Pacific so the company can see where the engines are being spotted

UP: Cloud Skunked; BNSF: Sunshine

Everything was in place to get a killer photograph of an eastbound train on the New Castle District of Norfolk Southern in Seven Mile, a small town in Southwest Ohio north of Hamilton.

Train 25A was waiting on the main for a meet with westbound manifest freight 174, which would go into the siding.

We had set up along a rural road to get a view over a cornfield of the 25A passing a grain elevator on the south side of town. We had earlier gotten a side view of the 174 on the north edge of New Miami.

The rear of the 174 rumbled past and we waited in anticipation of seeing the ditch lights of the lead unit of the 25A come on to indicate it was on the move. A bonus was the three Union Pacific locomotives lashed together elephant style that were pulling the 25A.

This is an intermodal train that originates at Calumet Yard in Chicago and carries a block of containers that NS gets from the UP. It also carries blocks of manifest freight.

We waited, and waited and waited. It would be 45 minutes before the dispatcher directed the 25A to continue east. We don’t know why the train didn’t leave sooner.

But as we waited what had been a few decorative clouds grew into additional and larger clouds.

You’ve probably figured out where this story is headed. By the time the head end of the 25A reached the grain elevator the sun had ducked behind one of those clouds.

We got cloud skunked.

I made some photographs anyway, one of which is the top image above.

We chased the 25A to Hamilton and managed to get an image of it coming around a curve in good sunlight. It was nice but not the image we had wanted to get.

After getting lunch at Subway, we returned to our location along that rural road at Seven Mile and waited for another eastbound.

Nothing was moving so we headed north. Along the way we got wind that the 189, a Detroit (Oakwood Yard) to Atlanta (East Point) manifest freight was coming.

The 189 would go into the siding at Seven Mile to meet the westbound 282, a stack train running from Jacksonville, Florida, to Chicago (Landers Yard).

The 189 had a BNSF leader and a Ferromex unit as a rear DPU. The nose of the Ferromex locomotive was pointed outward.

By now we were into high sun and harsh light time but that wasn’t going to stop us from chasing and photographing the 189.

We got it on the north side of Collinsville, Ohio, and then got into place to do the grain elevator shot at Seven Mile.

It wouldn’t be the same composition as earlier with the 25A because the sun had shifted to favor the other side of the former Pennsylvania Railroad tracks.

The clouds had also thinned a bit and we got plenty of direct sunlight as the 189 came rolling past the elevator.

With that we headed north and managed to get the 282 at Eaton.  I would catch one more train, the 142, at Conley Road northwest of Eaton before calling it a day and heading home.

CSX Two For Tuesday With Some UP Style

Here is a pair made on Sept. 30, 2021, in Clinton. In the top image Union Pacific SD70M No. 4199 leads a westbound. In the bottom image, the Q137 is rolling past on its daily journey from Baltimore to 59^th Street Yard in Chicago. Now known as the I 137, this train usually passes through Northeast Ohio in daylight.

Photographs by Robert Farkas

More Snow Trains

Here are some other trains we got on Sunday in the snow while railfanning along the former Pennsylvania Railroad’s Fort Wayne Line.

In the top image is CSX train I132 at Dunkirk. This is a run-through train that CSX gets from Union Pacific. It terminates on CSX in Detroit and usually operates with UP motive power.

The next two photographs were made at North Robinson. This was the second of three 171s running on this day.

Due to crew shortages three of these trains had been tied down at various locations on the Ft Wayne line one for almost a week. On Sunday they found crews to run them.

The last image is the 55K at Mansfield. This was an extra grain train for the big elevator in town.

Photographs by Todd Dillon

A UP Kind of Morning on CN

It was just coincidence that the first two Canadian National trains I saw while railfanning the Champaign Subdivision on Nov. 7 were led by Union Pacific motive power. UP units are, in my experience, not unusual on this stretch of CN although I don’t see them during every visit to the former Illinois Central mainline.

In train in the top image was following Amtrak’s southbound Saluki. The train in the bottom image was the first train I photographed on this outing. In both instance a tree next to the tracks made a handy way to work some fall color into the images.

The top image was made on the west side of the tracks and the bottom photograph on the east side in Pesotum, Illinois.

A UP Kind of Day

This past Wednesday was a Union Pacific kind of day. It began with catching a former Union Pacific 10-6 sleeping car on the rear of Amtrak’s westbound Lake Shore Limited in Chesterton, Indiana.

The car, now owned by Webb Rail, was built in June 1950 by Budd. In its current reiteration, it read “Pullman” in the letterboard and “Pacific Union” in the car name space.

A few hours later I had ventured further east to Otis, Indiana, where I caught Norfolk Southern train 39E coming around a curve with a pair of UP motors.

The train originates in Elkhart and goes to the UP at Proviso Yard in Chicago.