It's been a while since I've seen mutterings on this Pandora's box question, so here it goes: which Central of Georgia diesel do we think was the last to be repainted into the Southern-mandated tuxedo scheme, and when? What's the latest photo anyone has of a green or blue and gray engine? The ill-fated FM units, of course, don't count. Thanks, folks.

-- Rob Richardson (RichDent10@aol.com), February 22, 2000

Answers

In response to the question concerning the last Central of Georgia unit to be repainted into Southern tuxedo black - a thorough search through my photo collection revealed the following: RS3s #116 and 117 were photographed in the collard green paint in 1965, and one photo shows 116 in green as late as April 1966. The latest shot of a blue & gray unit is GP7 #132 in November 1964. Unfortunately, the E- units must have been repainted more hastily as I have no photos of them wearing any Central scheme after 1963. All of this is assuming that the slides were correctly dated at the time. This is NOT a 100% certainty, as we have found discrepancies in hand-written dates before. The GP7 slide in blue & gray, however, is date-stamped by Kodak "11-64" as well as hand-labelled. Back to the E7s, most of these were hastily repainted into the tuxedo SR scheme during the summer months of 1963 still wearing their original small number boards. By fall of 1963, most had been shopped and retrofitted with the large "frog-eye" F7 style number boards. In 1970, two of the E7s (802 & 808) were actually re-lettered SOUTHERN. The remainder went to scrap still wearing CENTRAL OF GEORGIA lettering.

-- Tom Alderman (Topa12283@aol.com), February 23, 2000.