A Brief History of Amtrak Paint Schemes and Liveries
A Brief History of Amtrak Paint Schemes and Liveries
As part of the celebration of our 50th anniversary, Brand Management team member Matt Donnelly took a deep dive into the history of Amtrak’s paint scheme and liveries. Over the past 50 years Amtrak has seen many changes to the look of our trains, with each era given the terminology of a “phase”. When Amtrak began in 1971, we acquired passenger cars and locomotives from 12 private railroad companies. They came painted in a mix of colors and wore the names of their previous owners. Amtrak didn’t have the time or money to apply its own livery, as the priority was to get the trains running. We have come a long way since that “rainbow era” of using hand-me-down equipment. Watch the video to see Amtrak’s colorful evolution and get a sneak preview of our upcoming Phase VII design.
This video reveals renderings for six specially painted 50th Anniversary commemorative locomotives, a collaboration of Devon Parsons of the Mechanical Department, Blair Slaughter, John Skalski, Seth Geist, John Dzedzy, and Krischen Temple of Rolling Stock Engineering, and Matt Donnelly of Marketing.
Here we sit down with past and present employees involved in designing our striking paint schemes. From our humble beginnings to what’s to come in the future, we learn about the challenges, creative inspiration and improvements made as we’ve grown and evolved our look as America’s Railroad over the past 50 years.
The ALC-42 is being built new, while the five P42s are part of a life cycle maintenance program at our Beech Grove, IN facility. Using locomotives already lined up for paint was key to the plan. The team sat down to discuss ideas for liveries that would honor Amtrak’s role as a major American transportation provider over the past 50 years and into the future. Here’s what we came up with:
P42 #46 “Phase V 50th”
Manufacturer: General Electric, 1997
Top Speed: 110mph
Horsepower: 4250
The Phase V livery has been our mainstay locomotive paint scheme for the past two decades. We added large “Connecting America for 50 Years” graphics to the sides to add some flavor to the familiar “blue wave” livery. #46 also happened to be the first of all 50th locomotives to enter service in January.
P42 #46 “Phase V 50th”
Manufacturer: General Electric, 1997
Top Speed: 110mph
Horsepower: 4250
The Phase V livery has been our mainstay locomotive paint scheme for the past two decades. We added large “Connecting America for 50 Years” graphics to the sides to add some flavor to the familiar “blue wave” livery. #46 also happened to be the first of all 50th locomotives to enter service in January.
P42 #100 “Midnight Blue”
Manufacturer: General Electric, 1997
Top Speed: 110mph
Horsepower: 4250
Simple yet striking, this dark blue beauty honors employees that work through the night keeping passengers moving across the country 24/7. Reflective white trim and supergraphics pop on this design which contrasts nicely when combined with standard liveried equipment in a train. P42 #100 is on its second special paint scheme, first having been decorated as a large manilla envelope featuring giant stamps and postmarks when it led the Celebrate the Century Express.
P42 #100 “Midnight Blue”
Manufacturer: General Electric, 1997
Top Speed: 110mph
Horsepower: 4250
Simple yet striking, this dark blue beauty honors employees that work through the night keeping passengers moving across the country 24/7. Reflective white trim and supergraphics pop on this design which contrasts nicely when combined with standard liveried equipment in a train. P42 #100 is on its second special paint scheme, first having been decorated as a large manilla envelope featuring giant stamps and postmarks when it led the Celebrate the Century Express.
P42 #161 “Phase I 50th”
Manufacturer: General Electric, 2001
Top Speed: 110mph
Horsepower: 4250
Amtrak’s first livery phase is an iconic design of the 1970s that was first revived on P42 #156 a decade ago for our 40th Anniversary. It was an instant fan favorite and gained a big following. The 156 is no longer in service, so we had to bring this retro classic back for the big 5-0 …but we’re keeping our leisure suits in the attic.
P42 #161 “Phase I 50th”
Manufacturer: General Electric, 2001
Top Speed: 110mph
Horsepower: 4250
Amtrak’s first livery phase is an iconic design of the 1970s that was first revived on P42 #156 a decade ago for our 40th Anniversary. It was an instant fan favorite and gained a big following. The 156 is no longer in service, so we had to bring this retro classic back for the big 5-0 …but we’re keeping our leisure suits in the attic.
ALC-42 #301 “Day 1”
Manufacturer: Siemens Mobility, 2021
Top Speed:
Horsepower: 4200
It all began with E8 #4316 being painted into a humble one-off livery for a press event on May 1, 1971 – our first day of operations as America’s Railroad. An elongated arrow logo on each side of the locomotive wraps around the front with tiger stripes on the nose. Fittingly enough for a railroad that started with hand-me-down trains, this livery would be resurrected for the first time on Amtrak’s newest locomotive, coming out of the factory 50 years later.
ALC-42 #301 “Day 1”
Manufacturer: Siemens Mobility, 2021
Top Speed:
Horsepower: 4200
It all began with E8 #4316 being painted into a humble one-off livery for a press event on May 1, 1971 – our first day of operations as America’s Railroad. An elongated arrow logo on each side of the locomotive wraps around the front with tiger stripes on the nose. Fittingly enough for a railroad that started with hand-me-down trains, this livery would be resurrected for the first time on Amtrak’s newest locomotive, coming out of the factory 50 years later.
P42 #108 “Phase VI 50th”
Manufacturer: General Electric, 1997
Top Speed: 110mph
Horsepower: 4250
Phase VI has been a standard passenger car livery for well over a decade, but due to timing and cost considerations coinciding with P42 deliveries at the time, it didn’t evolve onto P42s. Creating a modern P42 version of Phase VI was a great way to look toward the future while celebrating our 50th.
P42 #160 “Dash 8 Phase III”
Manufacturer: General Electric, 2001
Top Speed: 110mph
Horsepower: 4250
One of the most talked about past Amtrak livery designs of all time is the award-winning variant of Phase III unique to the Dash 8 fleet in the early 90s. There were a few challenges to overcome… No Dash 8’s are due for paint before retirement, and these locomotives are now found on work trains or in yard duty; rarely leading passenger trains anymore. Having seen some fantasy renditions of this livery applied by model railroaders to scaled down P42s before, the team challenged Blair Slaughter (original creator of this livery) to adapt it to a 1:1 scale P42. This bold design was never intended to be on anything other than a Dash 8, but pleasantly surprised us when we saw how well it adapted with minor modifications.
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