Heritage Series Celebrates its 40-Year History of Public Service by Honoring Predecessors with Wrapped Locomotives
View Photos of “New Haven Railroad” Commemorative Locomotive
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Metro-North Railroad has unveiled a sixth locomotive as part of its Heritage Series with a special design that was used until 1954 along the then New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, usually referred to as the New Haven Railroad. The Heritage Series was launched in May 2023 to celebrate Metro-North’s 40 years of public service and honor the railroads that independently operated commuter rail services along the lines that now mainly make up Metro-North: the Hudson Line, Harlem Line and New Haven Line.
Skilled craft workers at Metro-North’s North White Plains, Harmon, Stamford and New Haven shops restored Genesis-model dual-mode P32AC-DM locomotive No. 222 over the course of several months and wrapped the train in an olive green and a dandelion yellow vinyl, the paint scheme employed on New Haven Railroad locomotives until 1954. The train will make its debut run on the New Haven Line, Friday, Feb. 28, departing Danbury station at 7:51 a.m., and arriving at Grand Central Terminal at 9:55 a.m.
“The Heritage Series honors and educates Metro-North customers about the railroad’s rich history,” said Metro-North Railroad President Catherine Rinaldi. “We hope our customers enjoy the addition of the vintage colors of the then New Haven Railroad and that the new locomotive sparks some curiosity about the predecessor railroads that paved the way for Metro-North.”
The last commemorative locomotive expanded upon the originally envisioned Heritage Series, wrapping engine No. 214 to pay tribute to the Metro-North workforce. Instead of a scheme adapted from one of the railroad’s predecessors, the wrap pays tribute to the Metro-North workforce, featuring 2,000 pictures of past and present Metro-North workers. The employee photographs in varying gradient formed a mosaic of the clock tower at White Plains station representing the Harlem Line, a New York Cityscape representing Grand Central, a view of the Hudson River from the Bear Mountain Bridge for the Hudson Line and Bridgeport’s Black Rock Harbor Lighthouse for the New Haven Line. As a historical nod, one side of the locomotive uses the old two-toned “M” logo of the MTA, and the other side uses the modern MTA logo. Watch this video of employees working on the locomotive.
The fourth locomotive hit the rails in March 2024, and paid tribute to Penn Central, the 1968 merger of the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads, which also absorbed the New Haven Railroad in 1969. In the spring of 1970, the MTA signed an agreement with the Penn Central Railroad Corporation to subsidize the operations of the Hudson, Harlem and New Haven commuter rail lines which would later become the core East of Hudson rail lines that would make up Metro-North Railroad in 1983.
The third rebranded locomotive paid tribute to New York Central, the predecessor railroad that operated the Hudson and Harlem lines. Metro-North’s locomotive No. 211 made its debut run in NYC’s stylish lightning-stripe paint scheme on the Hudson Line on Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023.
The second rebranded locomotive paid tribute to Conrail, the railroad which is Metro-North's immediate predecessor. The engine made its debut on the Hudson Line on Monday, Aug. 14, 2023. The design of the wrap mimics the paint scheme applied to older FL9 dual-mode locomotives that Conrail operated for the MTA over the Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven Lines from 1976 to 1982. Metro-North’s locomotive No. 201 is one of 31 Genesis-model P32AC-DM engines the railroad uses to provide service on the northern Hudson and Harlem Lines and the New Haven Line’s Danbury and Waterbury Branches.
The first rebrand paid homage to Metro-North’s original design. Locomotive No. 208, which made its debut in May 2023, was wrapped in silver, blue and red vinyl. The design was created upon the railroad’s founding in 1983 for the railroad’s historic FL9 locomotives and worn by them until the last was retired in April 2007.
All six wrapped locomotives are in service on Metro-North’s Hudson, Harlem and New Haven Lines, and can be seen on any train that normally operates with the railroad’s dual-mode diesel/electric locomotives.