CADILLAC, Mich. — Great Lakes Central Railroad painter Dave Leonard is a perfectionist. He and car shop worker Steve Smith have just spent 30 minutes measuring, remeasuring, and placing masking tape on Great Lakes Central Railroad’s new logo, on the repainted nose of former Montana Rail Link SD35 No. 384. It’s one of three such MRL units bought in summer 2020.
“My dad had a spray gun in my hand at 10 years old,” says Leonard. “I’ve been painting things ever since.
“I don’t like being rushed,’’ he says, as he uses a razor knife to pop small air bubbles on the company’s New York Central-style logo, adding, “That’s what you call hillbilly engineering. It works every time.” While Leonard finishes tweaking his work, Smith is using a heat gun to remove the railroad’s old logo under each cab window.
The paint scheme being applied to No. 384 is a new look, first applied to a former SD45-carbody SD40-2, No. 329, previously Santa Fe No. 5348. The NYC-inspired design uses solid blue instead of black.
Well south of Cadillac, in a second-floor boardroom at the company headquarters in Owosso, Mich., Josh Lynch, vice president and general manager for Great Lakes Central, explains the new image.
“We’re rebranding our fleet and redirecting the company, part of the reason for the new scheme,” Lynch says, between checking urgent emails and discussing rate changes with Erin “Bubba” Springsdorf, a former GLC dispatcher who is now the railroad’s customer service supervisor. “Our units are well maintained; the paint on most of them is still good.
“We might try to squeeze another one (through the paint booth in Cadillac) before the grain rush. I do not want to sacrifice customer service to painting another locomotive.’’
He said it was exciting to look at mockups of paint schemes as the company rolled out new core values this year.
The care exercised by Leonard and Smith in the paint shop reflects the kind of values Lynch has in mind.
“We are a team,” Lynch says. “We are family oriented and our major goal [is] we want to value our employees.
“Every worker here, from a painter to the guy that drives spikes, turning wrenches, and switching cars, I just give them the tools they need to be successful.’’
The appearance of the railroad’s locomotives is important, Lynch says.
“We wash our engines; we have been keeping the horses running,” he says. “Our employees take a lot of pride.”
— Updated at 8:15 a.m. with additional details.
Beautiful locomotive. Couldn’t help but notice that the scheme is NYC-inspired despite the GLC running almost entirely on ex-PRR territory. Made me chuckle.
I know that a clean, nicely painted locomotive pulls no more freight than a dirty, rusty one. I do think it makes a difference for the employees and customers.