One of the most interesting aspects of Conrail is that it inherited a wide variety of locomotives and rolling stock from its seven predecessor railroads, creating quite a rainbow of colors in its early years. Some of those paint schemes are just too neat to obscure with blue paint, yet our "target" time frame for the layout is 1981/82, and most of the previous paint schemes were painted over by then, or at least had CR "patches" applied over the old logos.
We run one particular loco pair consisting of a Kato SD45, former Reading #7602, and an Athearn Genesis SD45-2, former Erie Lackawanna #3675. They are a speed-matched consist and both run and look great together. We thought these would be good candidates for a patch-out and make-over, and recently sent them to Quinn Weathering Depot (you can find him on Facebook) in Indianapolis, IN for Jason's professional touch. Using our Conrail Locomotive Data book, we selected correct new road numbers, so as to fit in with their numbering sequence for the appropriate class locomotive as Conrail did.
They arrived this week and we couldn't be happier - the photo speaks for itself. These will convincingly portray Conrail's early years in the late 1970s rolling across the eastern states. Thank you Jason for another terrific weathering project to improve our layout!