Colours of the LIRR before MTA

What was the colours for the LIRR before the MTA gained control over them.

How about before and during the Pennsy days?

Dark (kind of charcoal) gray with orange as a secondary color.

It's almost easier if you can pinpoint specific years you are looking for... so many "eras" overlapped each other in the years between Pennsy control and MTA control...

-otto-

Otto Vondrak wrote:It's almost easier if you can pinpoint specific years you are looking for... so many "eras" overlapped each other in the years between Pennsy control and MTA control...

-otto-

No real time frame to pinpoint.

How about during the Pennys Ero and before that?

So you want to know about all LIRR paint schemes from all-time? It would be much easier to answer if you can break it down for us... otherwise the answers are as follows:

tuscan, gray, orange, blue, white, gray, yellow, blue, gray. Not in that order.

-otto-

Thanks,

I know it was a very general question with a very general answer, but that is exactly what i was looking for.

Colors I have seen are grey with orange fronts, up to the late 60's, to early 70's (the harold protect engines are painted in these colors as a heritage tribute, complete with dashing dan) MTA white and blue, such as the cars at riverhead.

Otto Vondrak wrote:So you want to know about all LIRR paint schemes from all-time? It would be much easier to answer if you can break it down for us... otherwise the answers are as follows:

tuscan, gray, orange, blue, white, gray, yellow, blue, gray. Not in that order.

-otto-

You left out dirt brown, dirt gray, and just plain dirt.

Don't forget the "silver streaks", the KCS black red and yellow, and there was a UP yellow and red

OOPS those colors were after the MTA takeover

the KCS colors were neat. That time period when the LIRR was acquiring coaches from different railroads in the late 60s-early 70s is most fascinating to me. MACTRAXX

You can see some photos at http://lirr.dhs.org/ Look mainly in the 1960s slides.

The colors were gray and orange, with various shades of gray (as other notes have mentioned).

This is the same site as the old http://pasquale.dhs.org/lirr/ - just now it has its own domain.

Here's a string of them westbound leaving Great River:


Photographer was Jules Krzenski, and original negatives are in my archive. I gave the EIHS permission to post these on their site.

Dave

If you wanted pre-MTA colors, then I was wrong- eliminate the blues and yellows :-)

-otto-

-1of 160 -- When I first started riding the LIRR from Atlantic Ave "down east" Tuscan MU cars, change at Jamaica, Dark black steam locomotives (Dave Keller -- were they black or Pennsy Dark Green Locomotive enamel?) followed by more tuscan red coaches. I still think this was the most elegant, my favorite scheme.
-then came the light grey coaches with white roofs and windows, diesels appeared also light grey. It all had a Navy look about it.
-this was followed by a dark grey with orange trim, the diesels also dark grey with orange lines on sides, solid orange fronts. Some coaches had orange window stripes, others blue. The "Dashing Dan" logo decal was often in appearance. Interesting striped patterns on the locomotives.
-when the MTA came on the scene, they experimented with various dark blue and yellow combinations. Later they went to light silvery grey with dark blue or red stripes, at first on the windows, later as a panel running along the sides below the windows. More interesting wave like stripes on the locos, dark blue and white with bicolor big "M"s.
-when the Metropolitan MU's came along, the age of boring stainless steel commenced. I think the same types appear much better in NH red-orange or Metro North blue. I thought the Metropolitans would have looked appropriate with an orange stripe on the sides.
-so, give me a steam engine with tuscan red coaches, and I will be glad to ride out to Jamaica and change to it. (if only...)
Roger