Blue Paint

[NW Mailing List]

I remember the great debate about the blue paint. We still use it to mark cable locations near the track and future ins. joints. Yellow was the color of the Sig. Dept. for a long time (hard hats, etc.)

As an update, the end of the tie next to the milepost is painted blue, the end of the tie over a culvert is painted white (on the railroad north side of the track), there is a 12" white bar in the middle of the tie at each end of a bridge and the ins. joints have a blue square painted on the tie next to the joint. This is for a GPS locating system database.

Larry Stanley
Lead Signalman, Gang 677

(inferior??????)


>Ben and Dave,

>C&S Dept. used yellow paint until the 90's.  I was in the office then and

>part of my job was working with standards. I was given a note from the AVP

>Maintenance of Way for handling.   It seems MofW was using yellow paint on

>the rail also.  I believed it had something to do with rail defects found

>with the Sperry car.  If I remember right red paint meant immediate

>replacement, yellow paint was sprayed on a less urgent defect.  In any case,

>being the inferior group, WE had to change.  I sent a note back asking about

>orange or white. They were turned down too....other uses by MofW.  I then

>sent a rather terse note back to the AVP, asking him if there was ANY part

>of the color spectrum that C&S could use.  I got an equally terse reply.

>"Blue."

>So blue it was and still is.  I didn't like it because it was harder to see,

>but being the lesser group, C&S had to again bow to the wishes of M of W.

>(Actually I had more friends than foes in MofW so I'm not hateful. That's

>just the way it is.  We're often in a turf war and with fewer troops.)   

>We put blue in the standards.  And ironically some MofW supervisor made the

>mistake of using blue paint for something on the track.  We got word of it

>and balked ...successfully I might add.

>

>John Marbury

>Buford, GA