If you were around in the 60's and 70's, you were very lucky. You got
to see a lot of railroads that are no longer with us - they "disappeared"
right before your eyes. Mergers were happening all over the
place.
Railroads like the Burlington Northern came about, along with
the Chessie System, the Illinois Central Gulf, and the Penn Central.
Other railroads managed to absorb a whole slew of "lesser" railroads, ones
that maybe weren't doing all that well.... Like the Union Pacific absorbing
the Cotton Belt, Western Pacific, Missouri-Kansas-Texas, Missouri Pacific,
and the Chicago Northwestern.... and the Norfolk and Western absorbed
railroads like the Virginian, Nickel Plate, and Wabash among many others.
It also seems like the 60's and 70's (and some continuing into the 80's)
were a great time for steam excursions. Engines such as NKP #759 and
#765, SP #4449, UP #8444, N&W #611, Southern #4501, RDG #2101 and #2102, and
D&H #302 (which was #2102 in disguise :-).
With all of this "stuff" going on however, almost every railroad that was
around in 1975, made the decision to paint at least one engine in
Bicentennial colors. Big railroads, short lines, and even many
industrial railroads took the opportunity to take part in the national
celebration!
I've been railfanning since the mid 60's, but one of the most memorable sights I've
ever seen was SCL #1776 running at speed, southbound out of Richmond Virginia
along I-95 (actually, I believe it was still US 301 in 1975), AT NIGHT!
It was all lit up! I paced it for as long as I could before the R-O-W
wandered away from the highway. That was an excellent chance catch.
It's too bad all I had in the camera was 25 speed Kodachrome film, and not the
cell phones of today :-(
One thing lead to another, and someone suggested that I add the special
paint schemes the railroads have done over the years to celebrate veterans,
active military, first responders, presidents, etc. This led me to
say, what the heck, let's add special paint jobs for miscellaneous reasons,
like the Maersk repaint below.... I may have to create another page if this
one gets to big :-)
This page will highlight whatever I can find on these Patriotic Locomotives.
If you do a search for any of these locomotives, you will find many, many
more pictures than I have shown here.
A round of applause goes to all of these photographers for being in the
right place at the right time!!!
Acknowledgements:
Denver Todd
Jim Bartolotta
Joseph Bishop
Joe Blackwell
Adam Burns
Warren Calloway
John Campbell
Joseph Cermak
R. Craig
Alan Dykstra
Matthew Griffin
George Hamlin
William Harwell Jr
David Hedlund
Thomas J. Heher
Larry Irvin
JB
Don Jilson
Gregory Owen Johnson
C.W. Lahickey
Doug Lilly
Marc Lingenfelter
Terry Lovell
Kevin Morgan
Jim Munding
L.R. Myers
Frank Orona
George Pitz
Mike Ray
Colin Ritchie
K Sies
Dan Tracy
Mark Vogel
Craig Walker
Ken Ziegenbein
The FB page on Bicentennial Trains
Google Images
photo: Don Jilson
The Lehigh Valley did not paint any engines, this is their sole contribution taken a couple
of days before Conrail - Conrail was quick to paint over this nice looking caboose.
Kansas City Southern officials unveiled a locomotive with a patriotic paint scheme on 11/12/2018.
The scheme demonstrates the company's pride in past and present U.S. military activity duty and veteran employees.
photo: Ken Ziegenbein
Originally UP #8084. Here's a February 27, 1991 photo of Union Pacific 3593, the Desert
Storm locomotive (actually named Desert Victory), that UP painted in honor of Operation
Desert Storm in Iraq. This was the dedication of the locomotive in front of UP's Jenks
Shops in North Little Rock AR. According to UtahRails.net, (http://utahrails.net/up/up-
diesel-paint.php), on February 27, 1991, UP SD40-2 3593 was released from Jenks shops
painted with a U.S. Army inspired camouflage paint scheme to commemorate the 66 UP
employees who participated in Operation Desert Storm. It was was repainted in UP yellow
on October 11, 1991 since it was harder to see due to the camouflage paint scheme.
photo: Mark Vogel
A new paint job, with the photo being taken in 2008.
Special Paint Jobs
Canadian Pacific
photo:
Railway Age
Meanwhile, "up" in Canada, Canadian Pacific’s line-haul HFC locomotive, equipped with Ballard
Power Systems technology, began operational testing in January 2022. CP’s locomotive is the
HSOEL, which stands for Hydrogen Zero Emissions Locomotive.
I love trains, and I love signals. I am not an expert. My webpages reflect what I find on the topic of the page. This is something I have fun with while
trying to help others.
Please Note: Since the main focus of my two websites is railroad signals, the railfan guides are oriented towards the signal fan being able to locate them.
For those of you into the modeling aspect of our hobby, my
indexa page has a list of almost everything railroad oriented
I can think of to provide you with at least a few pictures to help you detail your pike.
If this is a railfan page, every effort has been made to make sure that the information contained on this map and in this railfan guide is correct. Once in a while,
an error may creep in :-)
My philosophy: Pictures and maps are worth a thousand words, especially for railfanning. Text descriptions only get you so far, especially if you get lost or
disoriented. Take along good maps.... a GPS is OK to get somewhere, but maps are still better if you get lost! I belong to AAA, which allows you to get
local maps for free when you visit the local branches. ADC puts out a nice series of county maps for the Washington DC area, but their state maps do not have the
railroads on them. If you can find em, I like the National Geographic map book of the U.S..... good, clear, and concise graphics, and they do a really good job
of showing you where tourist type attractions are, although they too lack the railroads. Other notes about specific areas will show up on that page if known.
Aerial shots were taken from either Google or Bing Maps as noted. Screen captures are made
with Snagit, a Techsmith product... a great tool if you have never used it!
By the way, floobydust is a term I picked up 30-40 years ago from a National Semiconductor data book, and means miscellaneous
and/or other stuff.
Pictures and additional information is always needed if anyone feels inclined to take 'em, send 'em, and share 'em, or if you have something to add or correct.... credit
is always given! Please be NICE!!! Contact info is here
Beware: If used as a source, ANYTHING from Wikipedia must be treated as being possibly inaccurate, wrong, or not true.