NS to do Heritage units

I heard today someone who quoted an amazingly high placed source in NS that they are in the process of doing heritage units. They have over 30 to choose from. They just have to figure out who has the rights to the predecessor railroad names and symbols. Fun for the lawyers. Once that is settled they will ask for schemes internally from employees and see what turns up. Winners will be chosen and they will be turned over to the shops for workup. No timeline specified but they did just order 100 SD70ACes to begin delivery in April of this year. Who knows, but I would love to see it.

 

Gotta do an Illinois Terminal

 

Interstate !

 

How about the original Norfolk Southern?

 

Carolina & Northwestern

 

It will be interesting to see what gets decided. Clearly NW, SOU, and PRR should be made. Nice to see NS deciding to buy more AC traction.

 

train

the conversation centered on the search for who owns the legal rights to the predecessor names. All the names that ran into the conrail consolidation went through bankruptcy. The rights to trademarks are usually assigned to someone in the bankruptcy. I sat next to a guy on a plane once who's business partner owned the name and trademark to White Star lines. That was the company that owned the Titanic. They went bankrupt and were bought by another steamship company. They went bankrupt and were dissolved. He worked on the bankruptcy as a lawyer and took the White Star name and trademark as part of his compensation. So who knows who actually owns the rights to use Pennsylvania Railroad or Nickle Plate or any of the others. That is the legal work that they are doing right now.

 

I do know NS owns the "PRR" reporting marks, and CSX owns the "NYC" reporting marks. Whether that translates into them owning the rights to the names "Pennsylvania Railroad" and "New York Central Railroad" or not, I don't know. I also know Penn Central still exists, though no longer a railroad. They are now an insurance company named American Finance Group. They may own the rights to the names.

 

This is the one I would like to see. There is a guy(CR114) on you tube that did his versions of these locos and they looked pretty good

 

There are certainly a lot of possibilities! It is good that it is even being considered.

One of my favorite NS units is GP59 # 4610 which has been painted in Southern green heritage scheme. I have caught this unit a couple of times, including here: NS 4610 sits with 3 GP50's at Canton yard

Harold

 

Here are some of mine. An SD-80/70/& 60. Since NS runs over old EL routes, its only natural they'd do these.:thumbs_up::tb-tongue:

 

This would be a neat addition if it comes to be. I did hear that the NS was pulling their steam enging back out last year. But again it was by word of mouth from a coworker. I will be interested to see what actually happens.

 

I'll all about the Western roads, but I think this is exciting too!

I can picture the purchasing folks at EMD: "Wait a minute, you actually want a loco that's NOT black with white lettering?"

Some of the rights to the heritage railroad names might belong to various railroad historical societies. I know the Pacific Electric Railway's trademark is not owned by the SP or UP but by a nonprofit group called the Electric Railway Historical Association of Southern California, which allowed the modern-day rail transit operator to paint a couple of its LRVs in PE livery. In other words, these kinds of groups would say "Yes" even before NS is done asking.

 

I don't remember the exact reason,,,, I'll look it up if nobody else knows.

Harold

 

It was an employee suggestion put into action.

 

There was a small placard on it that read, if memory serves, "Dedicated To The Engineers Of The Southern Railway". It should be on the Fireman's side of the short hood.

Actually, the 611 was pulled out of its spot at the museum for a shindig at the O. Winston Link museum. It's since been returned to its home "under the big top".