The Day It Will Be True Is Today. A few days after the 25th Anniversary of Shore Line East Service, CTRail/CTDX GP40-2H 6694 (née-BO 4005, GP40, 8/1971) led a string of former Virginia Railway Express Mafersa coaches west on Train 3661 crossing Shaw's Cove moveable bridge in New London, Connecticut on June 6, 2015. Some combination of my original caption (and editor Tom Nemeth’s insights) made it to print and the cover of the August 2015 issue of “Railpace Newsmagazine” describing this photo and a similar frame for the article. We wrote "Get those diesel Shore Line East shots while you can. Reports indicate diesel consists on the SLE may soon be replaced with ConnDOT MU equipment.” On May 24, 2022, that becomes true as 4-car trains of Kawasaki built MTA Metro-North M8s will now exclusively hold down the SLE assignment. It is always easier to write about history than predict the future, so we were certainly accurate when we also wrote "When SLE started in 1990, there was no overhead wire on the Shore Line.” This engine has since been rebuilt as a GP40-3H and repainted from the New Haven Railroad McGinnis tribute into the modern CTRail “Coke Zero” paint scheme.
Not
just heritage schemes, not just commemorative schemes - this album is devoted to some of the world's most interesting paint schemes, past or present.
