Do You Know Who I Am?
BN 8002 leads a nice A-B-A set just south of Rosenberg, TX on Jan. 15, 1998
At first glance, BN 8002 looks like just one more BN SD40-2, but don’t be fooled. Note the engine number on the cab, and the BN logo on the long hood, opposite of standard practice.
Fact is, the 8002 is a celebrity of sorts. It was the only SD40-2 painted into BN’s short-lived “tiger stripe” scheme.
In the late 1980’s, BN was looking for ways to reduce grade crossing accidents. One idea was to increase the visibility of their power by adding orange and black (tiger) stripes to the nose of locomotives.
The 8002 and GP38-2 2112 were re-painted into 2 variations of this scheme, shortly after which BN received several orders of GP50’s in this scheme.
Apparently BN didn’t feel that this scheme improved visibility enough to adopt the scheme for the fleet, as no other units were painted into this scheme.
Southwest Rails 
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