Norfolk Southern Heritage Units.

[Lehighton_Man]

This may be Far-Fetched, but wouldn't it almost seem reasonable that these units get assigned to NS tracks that are of those railroad's Heritage? If not the general area. Makes sense to me at least.

[waldwickrailfan]

Sorry. I'm just mad that these things are in the coal fields. It seems to me that these heritage units will stay in the coal fields for quite some time.

[habu]

Those are some great looking units. I live very close to the NS mainline here in Tennessee and I will have to make sure I keep my camera handy, in hopes of spotting one of these locomotives.

[tj48]

8104 has been delivered and is tentatively the Lehigh Valley unit.
8114 has been delivered and is tentatively the original Norfolk Southern unit.

Southern 8099 made its first revenue run today leading manifest 38Q from Knoxville to Roanoke. Photo by NS, as seen on their Flickr page:

Man that Southern unit looks great. Always thought that the Southern paint scheme was very classy. Can't wait to see the Virginian unit as well.

[wurlitzer153]

As of 8PM Easter Sunday, the NKP unit was parked at the Ashtabula ore dock on one end of an (empty?) ore train. Too far out to really get any pictures, but it sure looked good. The dock didn't look very active today, and I only saw one train on NS from 4PM to midnight, so I spent most of the evening chasing CSX.

[161pw165]

8104 has been delivered and is tentatively the Lehigh Valley unit.
8114 has been delivered and is tentatively the original Norfolk Southern unit.

Southern 8099 made its first revenue run today leading manifest 38Q from Knoxville to Roanoke. Photo by NS, as seen on their Flickr page:

Man that Southern unit looks great. Always thought that the Southern paint scheme was very classy. Can't wait to see the Virginian unit as well.

Gee, that doesn't look like a coal field...............

[waldwickrailfan]

All the units' first revenue runs were on manifests, after that they are all coal from there...at least for now.

[ns3010]

N&W is done at Juniata:
http://www.railpictures.net/photo/394626/

[waldwickrailfan]

Heritage unit locations:

Conrail: Fostoria,OH (4th)
Southern: Norton,VA (1st)
Nickel Plate: Ashtabula,OH (8th)
Central of Georgia: Chattanooga,TN (6th)
Pennsylvania: Painting in Altoona
Norfolk and Western: Altoona, PA (9th)
Lehigh Valley: Painting
Interstate: Painting
Original NS:
CNJ:
Erie:
IT:
NYC:
Lackawanna:
Reading:
S&A:
Virginian:
Wabash:
PC:

[oibu]

So there will be NYC, PRR, and PC, and practically every minor historic component of N&W and SOU is included (IT, INT, VGN, etc.) , but no EL unit. Who came up with that idea?

It's too bad the SOU unit has a sand filler right where the nose herald should be, but the NKP and COFG units look pretty nice.

[scottychaos]

So there will be NYC, PRR, and PC, and practically every minor historic component of N&W and SOU is included (IT, INT, VGN, etc.) , but no EL unit. Who came up with that idea?

This was discussed at length elsewhere (or perhaps earlier in this thread)..
I dont know if any official reasoning was ever given by NS, but the generally accepted theory for no EL unit
is simply because the DL&W unit already basically has the EL paint scheme..an EL unit would have been very similar to the DL&W unit.
so it could have been:

Erie & DL&W (the option chosen)
or
EL alone. (I think we all agree that one of each is better!
or
Erie & DL&W & EL - making the EL unit fairly redundant, in terms of the paintscheme.

yes, its basically the same thing as the NYC & PRR & PC units..
but the PC paintscheme is radically different from NYC and PRR..
not so with the EL unit..so the choice was made for no EL unit,
because in a sense the EL paintscheme is already being done with the DL&W unit..

makes sense to me..as an Erie & DL&W and EL fan, I have no problem with it..

http://www.nscorp.com/nscorphtml/images ... awanna.jpg

Scot

[oibu]

All well and good, but still really not much different from the PC situation. And the El paint scheme vs DL&W was only the same if you're looking at a DL&W passenger E or F vs. and EL F. On everything else, while the same basic colors, the schemes were not the same. And if that's the argument behind it, then why not a unit in the original EL scheme (black/yellow/white) , or a black Lackawanna unit and a maroon & gray EL?

Hey it's their railroad, but the complete omission of the 2nd largest non-N&W/SOU component (and that probably was in about the same league as the orginal N&W and SOU systems) of NS in an NS "heritage paint" program seems a bit silly. ALmsot like someone at NS still harbors an old Dereco grudge? It's kind of like if UP did a program and had UP, MP, D&RGW, SSW, WP, and Spokane International units, but didn't bother with SP. Sure they used the same schemes for a time (and in the case of SSW and Sp, they actually -were- the same) but there's several options available for each, just as there are at least 2 Erie, 3 DL&W, and 2-5 (depending how you look at things in what constitues a different paint "scheme"- obviously black vs gray, but also maroon lettering or yellow, straight stripes or curved, black roof or gray roof, etc.) EL options to choose from. If it simply comes down to the "same colors", shouldn't there also have been a choice made between either VGN or N&W, or Conrail and Wabash, or ? Just sayin.

[Matt Langworthy]

A black and yellow EL heritage unit would look pretty cool IMO. That being said, I'm pretty happy with the heritage unit program, even though there are no plans for the EL unit.

[blockline4180]

A black and yellow EL heritage unit would look pretty cool IMO. That being said, I'm pretty happy with the heritage unit program, even though there are no plans for the EL unit.

Yup, I agree! A "transition" EL unit in black and yellow would be perfect being that there are some Erie fans out there who are angry that that they are using the two toned Green passenger scheme... But like someone else said, it is their damn railroad, so they can do what they want!!

[Tadman]

I notice that each heritage unit has the high-mounted headlight but the hole for the nose-mounted headlight is still there. Is there a reason GE leaves this hole here? Without a headlight it's just a great place for leaves and dirt to collect and rust to form. Besides, if this were a stamping there would be clear cost savings in having a headlight hole on every nose, but it's fabricated steel - GE could easily order batches with and without nose headlights. Or even weld a steel patch over before painting...