Remember the orange & white (and grime & rust) scheme of the Illinois Central? Between the first incarnation of the black paint (with the green diamond) and the second (with the "Death Star" logo) IC painted its diesels in an orange & white scheme. Successor ICG would follow with an all-orange and orange & gray livery, but the orange & white, to me, is most remembered. Here GP10 8175, a Paducah (KY) rebuild, is spotted in Van Buren, AR with Rock Island GP38-2 4321, in the MP yard. While ICG was still in business in this fall 1980 shot, the Rock had already ceased operation. I saw the IC Geep in used switching Missouri Pacific's area customers, and I suspect the Rock refugee was just acquired from the trustee (as was quite a few GP38-2s), and was awaiting another coat of paint, of the Jenks blue variety. As for the "grime and rust" crack, most IC and ICG diesels I saw looked this way- that orange & white didn't weather too well (yeah I know, the Frisco's colors looked grungy after a time in service, too). [ 11. February 2004, 17:49: Message edited by: friscobob ]
This was one of my all-time favorite locomotive paint jobs. It's design was simplistic, yet brilliant ! Even from a great distance, if you saw one, you knew exactly what road it was.
Thanks for that! A really interesting pic. Two fallen flag schemes in one. Sadly, by the time I got to IC country, it was CNIC, orange and white had long gone, and "deathstar" black seemed to be dissapearing as well. I'll have to get the shots of the remaining IC black scanned in & posted. I managed to find one of those cool re-cabbed switchers as well.
This month's Diesel Era has color pics (Orange and White) of IC SD45's and other 6 axle road switchers! Harold
That's a great pic. I always liked IC orange. ROCK ISLAND "bankrupcy blue" looks good too. It looks even better next to an IC unit.
