WTH is this Penn Central unit?

Penn Central's attempt at a Girl's Train, perhaps? 

I remember seeing that unit but I forget where. I also think it was done at the early stage of the merger when they were thinking of a new paint scheme for the newly formed  PC. 

 

Not the best paint scheme to have picked IMO. Too expensive to do so they went with basic black and the worm logo. 

If I recall correctly, that paint scheme was on units assigned to the Metroplitan Transit Authority.

 

Rusty

With the third rail shoe mounted on the trucks, they could go right into Grand Central...

 

Marty

Those are the colors that were adapted by the Metropolitan Commuter Transit Authority, now the MTA, when Gov. Rockefeller bought the Long Island Railroad and started to modernize it. So when the MTA started to subsidize the Penn Central they had to repaint the NH FL-9's in these colors.

Now that made my day!

 

Thanks Allan!

you know... now that you mention it, I do believe i've seen those colors before:

 

 

 

Mario,  The second order of LIRR C-420's (222-229) were delivered (1968) in the MTA colors  and a lot of their older power was repainted into the MTA colors.  Perhaps this is where you've seen these colors before.

This scheme carried over to Conrail. It is similar to the LIRR scheme of the time. At least these got painted. Many FL9s under PC stayed in thrashed New Haven paint with white worms for years. Some others got black dip paint.

Those colors are definetly jogging something in my memory. Just can't clearly remember when or where I saw them. Might have even been a TV show.  Pretty cool colors I think. 

Love that PA speaker for a horn! I can just imagine the engineer yelling at people to get out of his way. No air horns in the city, eh?

 

Or maybe that thing between the windshields is something else??

 

Neil

That's a Hancock 4700 air whistle.

 

http://atsf.railfan.net/airhorns/h4700.html

 

Rusty

Shivver me timbers - learned something new today...thanks, Rusty!

 

Checked out the sound bytes, pleasant enough, but were they loud enough to be effective?

 

Neil 

Here is a Conrail FL-9 in MTA colors handling a Metro North non-electric territory train operating to Grand Central.

 

 

When Penn Central came about, electrics used on the former New York Central lines were soon retired . The S class and T Class motors went back to the original electrification and the P class which went back to the CUT electrification were a bit newer but also having 40 years of service on them.  The fleet of former New Haven FL-9s picked the duty of handling trains to and from the non-electrified territory in and out of grand central on both the former New York Central Hudson and Harlem lines and the New Haven Main line. The MTA colors were used on the engines assigned to the New York Central routes when Metro-North came into being . There were PC and some Conrail units . Amtrak also had some of these FL-9s from New haven but they were in the Amtrak platinum schemes.

 

Dual Mode Genesis engines now handle these trains since the early 1990s. My how time flies.

 

Back in the day, on the CB radio, the New York State Police cars were known as "Sunoco Specials"

I believe in one man's junk is another man's treasure, but these colors are kinda awful.

Thanks,

Mario

 

Well you are entitled to your opionion. IMHO LOVE THOSE COLORS. I would take them over the PC "infected worm" & black death colors ANYDAY. Even the NS  black and white as well!