Enola Yard Color

Enola Yard is the gigantic classification yard located directly across the Susquehanna River from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1905 and is still in use today. The yard changed ownership in 1968 when the Pennsy merged with the New York Central to form Penn Central. The yard experienced a sea of blue paint starting in 1976 with the Conrail merger and in 1999, it was back to black as Norfolk Southern took over Conrail. Except for PRR passenger diesels and the royal blue Conrail locomotives, nearly every diesel wore a shade of black paint, including PRR and PC’s Brunswick Green.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. February 26, 2017, was a typical Pennsylvania winter day, with mainly deep blue skies and chilly temperatures. I had the good fortune of seeing Norfolk Southern SD9043MAC #7337 in nearly full Indiana Railroad red dress, with minor NS patching. For a railroad dominated with black and white motive power, this was spectacular!!! The “Now Hiring” sign at the employee entrance made an interesting foreground prop. A little later I saw one of the DC to AC conversion AC44C6M’s in a flashy blue, grey and yellow scheme reminiscent of the Delaware & Hudson! Catching two different colorful NS diesels makes for a good day of railfanning… and that was without seeing a Heritage Unit!