Heritage Units for the LIRR

Most of us know that MTA Metro North have specially painted "Heritage" engine units depicting various fallen flags or other special themes related to their past.

How many would be in favor if the LIRR were to paint some of their units with special "heritage" paint schemes of LIRR's past? Wouldn't be neat to see one painted in the slate gray Tichy scheme, or earlier gray with orange side bowtie units of the '60's complete with Dashing Dan logos and succeeding schemes into the MTA era?

FS: Yes-MNCR has honored their heritage and predecessors well on their current P32 locomotive fleet...

The LIRR could do some of the same - with these exceptions: The current DE/DM 30 passenger units have a
substantial portion of the side body built with stainless steel that is designed to never require painting...
The most that could be done is to repaint or recoat the front ends with heritage colors and/or logos...
The current blue and yellow is NYS colors along with the MTA pac-man logo and LIRR identification...
The DE/DM 30 units are not a good fit - and will not do justice - for past vintage LIRR color schemes...

What CAN be done is to repaint some of the remaining MP15 units - which have a substandard color
scheme along with paint application - to become heritage units...The body needs to be sandblasted
and new paint professionally applied...These could vary from the 1950s Tichy, 1960s orange and gray
to their original 1977 blue and white color scheme that they were delivered to the LIRR in...

The LIRR once had two SW1001 units in East River Tunnel "Protect" service - #102 and #104 were both
painted in the gray and orange scheme with Dashing Dan logos...These units had a MU coupler and a
control stand to "rescue" MU trains out of the tunnels and west of Jamaica when need be...

Another thought would be to use some vintage LIRR color schemes on the new dual-mode Siemens
Charger locomotives that NYS has ordered for MNCR and Amtrak Empire Service as well as the LIRR...
Delivery should be optomistically at some point during the next five years...The MNCR units are just
beginning to be built this year for the record...Hope this gives an idea and answers some questions...
MACTRAXX

MACTRAXX refers to these:


LIRR #102 & #104 Speonk 8/1993 Photo: Lester Zmudzinski


LIRR #102 north engine layup at HAROLD, LI City
c.1992 Photo/Archive: Steve Torborg

Harold Protect paint: LIRR #104-#102 Harold Protect Dutch Kills Photo: Bobby Kasza c.1995+

Side note: the MNR units are for the most part wrapped, not painted.

Perhaps we can wrap them since they can't be painted.

The concept was actually brought up several times to the proper channels in upper management.
Apparently it was a financial issue why LIRR chose ultimately not do wrap anything.
There was a discussion brief at that, where ideas were proposed.
One idea was a full M7 wrap as worlds fair scheme.
And even possibly wrapped like the DD1 in the green with gold stripe scheme, which with some modifications would look really nice on the M7.
The idea got so far as to weather or not to wrap the side doors because of fears that if the wraps failed abs pealed they may result in a door getting hung up and delaying or canceling a train.
I am not privy to the cost of those wraps for a full M7. But in my opinion it would have looked absolutely great!
Overall would have been a “win” for the company but regular complainers will still be the loud noise in the room trying to kill it.
What was the public’s response to the MNR units? +/-?
I heard there is potentially a NH heritage unit in discussion too?

Fwiw. The Diesel D-30s could be painted on the fiberglass front in tichy and orange (similar to the C-Liners.)
Not a 100% heritage like NS but a modified style to fit the car body and stainless steel not being modified short of removal of the stripes and adding of “LONG ISLAND” lettering on the flank.
What y’all think?

A DD1 style wrap on an M7 would have looked great. Sounds similar to the GWR livery in the UK only with darker green and gold instead of white striping/lettering.

The DE/DM series is hard to do much of anything with if the LIRR is not inclined to wrap the entire locomotive. But if they were I think a version of the Bicentennial paint scheme would work in spite of the carbody being radically different than that of a GP38-2.

With respect to the D30s the best you’ll get is painting the fiberglass and removing the blue stripes and replacing with “long Island” as on the tichy and grey/orange dashing Dan C-Liner.
The stainless would remain as it.
So it’s heritage bases made to fit.
I saw a drawing of a tichy one. And it looks great!

It would be great to see the current Diesel fleet re-done in the old orange and gray. As a kid I always thought the orange front looked good and gave the loco high visibility as well.

One issue about wrapping MU sets - how often do they split and mix sets around? It'd look weird to have a few different heritage schemes around in one set.

The again, I'd like to see a return of Dashing Dan and Dashing Dottie. The other Dashing logos...I think they'd never leave the roundhouse...

(Am I the only one who thinks the current MTA logo sucks?)

I call the current MTA circle "Pacman swallows the MTA". It kind of looks like Pacman eating the letters. The old M over Long Island was a better logo.

I could see a M-7 with a 1964 World's Fair heritage wrap, with the front end orange, much like the MP75s.

NSD and FL9: The current MTA logo dates from 1994 when the MTA agencies were re-branded...
MTA LIRR, MTA MNR and NYC Transit were the prime examples in this instance...

I never liked the "pac-man" logo from day one - and thought that the previous two-tone blue
"M LONG ISLAND" or the round M used by MNCR (and letter font) were better...

Around 10 to 15 (?) years ago there were wrap-type advertisements on the outside of LIRR cars...
New York State Tourism (on the M7 cars) and Heineken Beer (C3 cars) comes to mind...
Was there any reason for the discontinuance of these ads?

Would the LIRR be open viewing MNCR's successful heritage unit program to the use of historical
color schemes on locomotives? I still think that the MP15 (LIRR Class E15) units would be the best
fit knowing that they could use body work along with a new paint application...MACTRAXX

There are a few guys in mgmt who would love to bring the Dan and Dottie back. I know the keystone has been gradually reappeared over the years in various forms. Once those folks replace the last the folks against it. I would not be surprised if the MTA actually allows the return of Dan and Dottie. If done right it can be a huge safety mascot for the railroad. I don’t see why something cannot be done.

I mean, if you repaint the MP15ACs with rollers in heritage schemes, they'll look wrecked in like, 6 months tops.

I do know that the torpedoed work locomotive procurement of PR20Bs was to be painted in a "cuomo-itized" version of the classic swoop.