As Metro-North Railroad Continues to Break Pandemic-Era Ridership Records, Railroad Rebrands a Series of Diesel Locomotives to Celebrate 40 Years of Public Service

View Photos of First Rebranded Metro-North Locomotive 

View Video of Rebranded Locomotive 

As Metro-North Railroad continues to set post-pandemic ridership records, the railroad is rebranding up to five locomotives with special colors and designs as a Heritage Series to highlight the railroad’s 40 years of service to the public.  

Skilled craft workers at Metro-North’s North White Plains Shop applied a vinyl wrap to Metro-North’s locomotive No. 208, the first locomotive to be rebranded. The colors of silver, blue and red pay homage to Metro-North’s original design created upon the railroad’s founding in 1983 for the railroad’s historic FL9 locomotives and worn by them until the last was retired in April 2007.  

Additional locomotives will be wrapped in the heritage liveries that were worn by predecessor railroads. All will remain in service for the foreseeable future. 

Metro-North’s locomotive No. 208. It is one of 31 P32ACDM models the railroad uses to provide service on the northern Hudson and Harlem Lines and the New Haven Line’s Danbury and Waterbury Branches.  

Last week, Metro-North set pandemic-era ridership records last week in three categories: Average Weekday; Average Tuesday-Thursday; and Average Weekend. For the first time since March 2020 the railroad carried over 200,000 three consecutive days on May 9-11, recording a pandemic-era high on May 9 with 205,069 riders. On Sunday, May 14, Metro-North carried 101,089 people, marking the first time since pre-COVID that Sunday ridership has exceeded 100,000. 

On Friday, May 12, Metro-North carried a record 4,933 baseball fans to watch the Yankees defeat the Tampa Bay Rays 6-5, or 10.7% of the stadium attendance. It was the highest game-day ridership this season, and the highest percentage of Yankee Stadium attendance since the American League Championship Game on Oct. 8, 2017, when the Yankees defeated the Houston Astros 6-4 and Metro-North carried 11.0% of the 48,804 fans in attendance.