BN BN original paint scheme

Being new here, I might ask something that has already been dealt with. But any help would be appreciated.

Basically, I have two different questions concerning the original BN paint scheme:

1: At the very beginning, the walkways of the diesels were green, I have a postcard showing a set of GP35s (if I remember correctly) which have bright green walkways. Just the way the original Athearn models had them. But BN must soon have changed this as there are hardly any pictures available in books or on the internet where green walkways can be spotted. It seems that BN first changed to something like a silvery light gray, and only some time later came up with the dark gray that one sees on most pictures.

Now my question, when were these changes made by BN, and are there any more photos that are accessible which also clearly depict the green walkways?

2: My second question concerns the white nose striping on the green BN diesels. There seems to have been some variation in the placement of the white stripes, but all the pictures of EMD units I have access to show 4 white lines running from the upper right to the lower left in a head-on view.

Now I own a Athearn model that has the stripes going from the upper left to the lower right. I presume that this is one example of the intentional negligence that Athearn employees cultivated for a while under their unloved old boss. But then, I wonder whether there might have been a few units that really did have their striping reversed. Again, any such pictures would be appreciated.

 

Welcome aboard, Robert.

Whilst I can't comment on the walkway colouring except I though it alway to have been black (the grey may have been wearing through the black to primer).

The best place to check out BN locomotives would be Charles Biel's BN archives - http://archive.trainpix.com/BN/

There's plenty of shots of locomotives there including quite a few near overhead shots. Also plenty of front on, full and 3/4, shots.

As for the stripes, most are right to left, top to bottomas you look at the front of the unit. Please note there was two variations of placement - most had four full width stripes, some had three with small triangles of white placed opposite to the norm, i.e., where the norm had green, the oddballs had white. Some of the 2300 series of ex-Frisco GP38-2's is an example of this variation.

Hope this is of help.

 

Thanks Gary, I already know the page you mentioned. Most pictures one finds in the internet are of more recent origin than the period when green on the walkways was possible. I presume that this must have been a relatively short period.

As for the stripes, the variation I was referring to is restricted to the 4 full-width stripes. And it meant that e.g. the top of the crease on the nose was usually in the green area, but there were also cases where it was in the white.

 

Thanks for moving the post, but when I looked over the BNSF forum, I noticed several dealing with BN, e.g. the discussion about the greens.

 

I'd take a guess that the green walkways were due to overenthusiastic painting (or not being bothered to mask them off and paint black) during the repainting, taking a guess that none of those affected were factory painted BN but were shop repaints.

The white stripe issue sounds like a model manufacturers mistake, like the old Atlas C425 models having white stripes on the back as well...

 

Very much so, Martyn. That's what the Athearn striping appears to be.
But there were a few with stripes on the long-hood end, though not both ends from memory. These were a handful of ex-GN SD9's set up long hood forward and were based for the most part out of Northtown (MSP).

 

I have a recent Atlas geep that is correctly long hood forward, ex-GN. Very nice! It even has the traincrew facing the right way!

But in the Atlas/Kato years they slapped white stripes on both ends of most things, C424/5, RS11, RS3...not to mention an 'orrible pea green version of BN paint, with green steps and ends as well...pretty poor research.


I wonder if any of those ex-GN long-hood-forward geeps/SD's got white stripes both ends after being chop-nosed?

 

I think they lost the long hood stripes and got the low-nose stripes on rebuild. Two GP9 images on the BN Archives - 1794 and 1797 - are low-nose rebuilds and appear to be coupled back to back with no striping on the long hood end.
They would have been modified to short hood forward operation at the time hence the stripe change.

 

The dual control stand SD-9s had stripes on both ends. They were classified as "SD-9S"

I too,would guess that the rush to get BN green units out resulted in walkways that were green in the beginning. I do have some photos of some units outshopped in March of '71 that do have black non-skid on the walkways. The battery boxes had sticky back non-skid material applied to them. They didn't have the foot traffic, and gunk spilled on them either. That is why they stand out in most photos while the walkways appeared a different color.

 

The last two or three issues of Diesel Era magazine have been about the BN SD40's. If you can pick them up, they've got several different paintschemes in there that might help you. If you're unable to do so, I could see about making some color copies for you and mailing them. Send me a PM if needed.

 

I just noticed that Broadway Limited are issuing their new BN SD40-2s with green walkways. Even those with BNSF overpaint! Now that must sure be way off, I would think.

 

IIRC, the"backwards" nose stripes were unique; I believe it was GP38AC 2121. For whatever reason, it seems Athearn chose to paint the backward stripes, but modeled unit 2264. They did subsequently get the stripes corrected.

 

If I have done this correctly, this link shows the "backwards stripes" on BN 2121. (Scroll down to about the middle of the page.)http://205.214.89.196/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?tpc=5&post=484

 

Does that mean that they fixed the stripes??

Harold

 

WOW! Thanks so much for this link. I have only just now discovered your post as I had kind of assumed there was nothing new coming any more.