The Oklahoma Railway Museum in Oklahoma City on Tuesday showed off the ongoing cosmetic work on Santa Fe EMD FP45 90, the first FP45 ever built. The locomotive, which previously wore faded red-and-silver “Warbonnet” colors from its Super Fleet days, was renumbered to 5990 — the number it wore while wearing the blue-and-yellow “Freight Bonnet” colors in the 1980s — and now wears those colors once more.
During the work, volunteers worked to repair rust-damaged sheet metal as well as apply new paint. This process revealed traces of red and yellow paint from when the locomotive wore the SPSF paint scheme, created for the proposed merger of Southern Pacific and Santa Fe, and ultimately rejected in 1986. This scheme was nicknamed “Kodachrome” for its resemblance to the Kodak slide film.
The museum says they do not plan to return the locomotive to operating condition, but hopes the new look will show off a different chapter in the locomotive’s history…