Shrink-Wrap Ads and Paint Schemes on the Commuter Rail Fleet

Commuter Rail has come up with an ecomomical way of sprucing up the outside appearances of the coach fleet, SHRINK-WRAP! Since there is no paint booth here at B.E.T., or anywhere else for that matter, coach 205 has been entirely sanded down and had silver and purple shrink-wrap panels applied in the appropriate places, finished off with shrink-wrap yellow pinstripes.

Did April fools come early this year?

Interesting idea though. I wonder if other commuter agencies have tried/will try it.

Hmmm, it'll be interesting to see how it holds up against the elements versus paint and the financial benefit, if any, of doing so.

Also, as we know locomotives have been repainted, but have any/do all coaches normally get repainted at some point?

I find it interesting that a 200 series car was picked to be the first wrap. As the 200 cars are generally in better condition than some of the other types of cars in the fleet.

The coach does look "clean", but it also looks plastic, just like nearly everything these days.

If its good enough for the ad agencies, it's probably good enough for the MBTA (referring to cost/durability)

I think the Bombardier 600-series BTC-1Bs should be next, they are REALLY filthy!

The ads are temporary, this is theoretically permanent. I would think the most logical investment would be to A. Send the cars out to be painted since they're doing that now for other work anyway, or B. Buy a paint booth. Unfortunately, the oversized closet at Orient Heights probably isn't big enough for Commuter Rail stuff. If they can buy a paint booth for a carhouse which not only had the worst looking fleet but then replaced that fleet with stainless steel cars, they can dump some money into a paint booth that might actually be used a couple times.

sery2831 wrote:I find it interesting that a 200 series car was picked to be the first wrap. As the 200 cars are generally in better condition than some of the other types of cars in the fleet.

Maybe it's because shrink wraps don't adhere as well to rust? (some of the cars are PEELING!)

What do they paint the buses with? Perhaps it's portable enough that it could be taken to the commuter rail area for a month.

Paint booths are not portable. Everett has a booth that was just enlarged to paint articulated units. There is a paint booth on every line, why the CR does not have one has always been a mystery to me.

Is there paint at Amtrak's Southampton Shop?

Mcoov wrote:Is there paint at Amtrak's Southampton Shop?

No, Amtrak only does S&I at Southampton.

MBTA3247 wrote:

Mcoov wrote:Is there paint at Amtrak's Southampton Shop?

No, Amtrak only does S&I at Southampton.

And repairs.

sery2831 wrote:There is a paint booth on every line, why the CR does not have one has always been a mystery to me.

And when I was at CSX I always wondered why the Paint Track wasn't closer the the buildings at B.E.T., lol. Funny that there is a track named the Paint Track, but they don't have a paint booth.