U30B 1949 partial F4 and F5 schemes

[NW Modeling List]

Hey Ed,

I’ve seen plenty of N&W locos with paint failures. Do you think the unit was painted blue and then painted over in the black N&W scheme without adequate prep and then weather and caustic cleaners stripped the black and left the Scotchlight decals?

Thanks!
Greg Davis
St Pete, FL

On Oct 25, 2025, at 7:02 PM, NW Modeling List <nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org> wrote:


One thing you guys need to remember is that when an engine went in for a repaint, they weren't taking the same steps as one would when painting one's own custom car!

Jimmy Lisle



Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone


-------- Original message --------
From: NW Modeling List <nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org>
Date: 10/25/25 2:11 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: NW Modeling List <nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: Re: U30B 1949 partial F4 and F5 schemes

That's one really crazy scheme. No idea how such a bastardized paint job could have ever been performed. The date of the picture was 1973.

Decatur was often in a world by itself and didn't march in step with the N&W as a whole.  Decatur was the assigned maintenance location for N&W GE's.  GE's on the N&W seemed to have more than their fair share of maintenance and operational issues.  N&W motive power management from other locations expressed that the single largest issue with GE's was Decatur.

Here's a 1975 picture of 1949 at Brewster in the black NW scheme.

Ed Painter - from Giles County, VA

On Fri, Oct 24, 2025 at 6:41 PM NW Modeling List via NW-Modeling-List <nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org<mailto:nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org>> wrote:
Ed Painter's comment :

"Very strange to think a N&W unit could have been painted blue after 1974(or really after 1971 when black NW scheme became official) ?????  The date of this picture was 1981"


made me think of this pic of U30B 1949, Decatur IL, 1973. What happened here ? Partial F5 'C&O merger/non-merger' lettering, over F4 Pevler Blue ?

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/original-slide-w-norfolk-western-ge-4902168776

Does anyone have pics of 1949 around this era, to help nut out what happened ?

Ben Scanlon
Shanghai, China




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