Railking Shore Line East F-3s

I never heard that Conrail assigned FL-9s based on their paint jobs. You can find many photos of ragtag units or units that were not repainted by Conrail in service on the Hudson Line.

5002
5017
5024
5026
5027
5028
5037
5038
5048
5052
5054
5056
5057

Finally, to everyone who celebrates it, a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

.

It's amazing how battered those units look, given that they're less than twenty years old. Out here at that time we had bankrupt MILW and Rock, and although the Rock was quite shabby, it wasn't that shabby. Those FL9's look as if they spent a year at the bottom of a tar pit. Same for the rolling stock (save for the D&H leftovers, which were rehabbed ~ten years prior).

Don't forget the MU fleet was virtually brand-new. The problem was the MTA at that point in time just did not have adequate funding available. They were already considering extending electrification on the Harlem Line and with dollars being pretty scarce the diesel service was pretty much left to its own devices.They bought some second-hand intercity coaches and that was about it.

Once the FL-9s got some paint and body work I think they at least looked as good as anyone else's locomotives. Metro-North did a great job rehabbing them, at least cosmetically.

2003
5031

Even with the "Push" to clean up the fleet by the MTA in the PC years,washing the FL-9's and the coaches was done rarely
if at all,still a good part of the fleet looked like 5048.

They looked their best with the red/blue/silver paint/or the restored NH paint on the Chrome Crankshaft units.
The silver/blue stripe a close 2nd.

Happy and safe holidays to all

Backshophoss wrote:They looked their best with the red/blue/silver paint/or the restored NH paint on the Chrome Crankshaft units.

They looked their best when they were new from LaGrange and in NYNH&H service!

Hope you're having a happy holiday too Hoss.

Tadman wrote:It's amazing how battered those units look, given that they're less than twenty years old. Out here at that time we had bankrupt MILW and Rock, and although the Rock was quite shabby, it wasn't that shabby. Those FL9's look as if they spent a year at the bottom of a tar pit. Same for the rolling stock (save for the D&H leftovers, which were rehabbed ~ten years prior).

The New Haven went broke for the last time in 1961; the road got shoved into PennCentral (as a condition of merger approval) on 12/31/68; and PC itself went bankrupt in June 1970. By the summer of 1979 those 20ish-year-old units were on their third owner and had spent close to 3/4 of their careers running for bankrupt companies. It's a miracle they were operating at all.

Tommy Meehan wrote:Don't forget the MU fleet was virtually brand-new. The problem was the MTA at that point in time just did not have adequate funding available. They were already considering extending electrification on the Harlem Line and with dollars being pretty scarce the diesel service was pretty much left to its own devices.They bought some second-hand intercity coaches and that was about it.

Once the FL-9s got some paint and body work I think they at least looked as good as anyone else's locomotives. Metro-North did a great job rehabbing them, at least cosmetically.

2003
5031

Tommy: I agree with you-I always liked the 80s MNCR locomotive color scheme...

I also recall the blue and silver early 80s color scheme...
5031 looks to have BOTH the two-tone M lettered CENTRAL and the MNCR circle M...
How many FL9s had those colors?

MACTRAXX

2 FL-9ac's that were the prototypes/test beds for the DE/DM-30's were done in MNR's red/blue/silver paint,but were lettered
with the "M" ball for LIRR,were "shop Queens" along with the C-1 cars

actually there were 3, LIRR 300 -301-302.

Darnet you beat me to it LOL. Little trivia fact: #301 was originally NH 2000.

The weird thing about them,they never ran on the MNR for testing.
Instead MNR went with GE's P-32 dm.

wrong, the 3 LIRR units ran out of Harmon on test trains with a single pair of C1 cars, we even ran them into GCT.
MNCR owned all 10 FL-9 AC's with 7 assigned to MNCR 2040-2046 and 3 to LIRR the 300-301-302