rainbow era
A period in the early 1970s when Amtrak operated a fleet of used equipment that still carried the paint schemes of their previous owners.
rainbow era: Amtrak's mismatched startup fleet, 1971-1973
When Amtrak took over intercity rail service on May 1, 1971, it inherited a chaotic collection of locomotives and passenger cars from the bankrupt railroads it replaced. Rather than repaint everything immediately, Amtrak operated these machines in their original liveries: Santa Fe warbonnets, Pennsylvania Railroad tuscan red, Southern Pacific Daylight orange, Rock Island Line maroon. From a distance, a single train might display five or six different paint schemes. This period, roughly 1971 through 1973, became known as the rainbow era among railroad employees and enthusiasts.
The practical reason was simple: money and time. Amtrak had limited capital and needed to start running trains at once. Repainting a full consist of equipment took weeks and cost thousands per unit. The railroad companies that contributed equipment sometimes expected their machines back eventually, making the investment in fresh paint seem wasteful. Some locomotives and cars wore their predecessor colors for years before finally getting Amtrak's standard silver and blue scheme.
What passengers and workers saw
The visual effect was genuinely bizarre. A single Northeast Regional might depart Penn Station with a Pennsylvania GG-1 electric (tuscan red), Pullman-Standard coaches (various schemes), a Southern Railway baggage car, and a New York Central observation lounge. Station workers could identify the source railroad of each car by sight, a skill that became less useful as the fleet standardized. Photographers and rail enthusiasts actually sought out this period because it represented a kind of industrial archaeology in motion, the old system still visible while the new one took shape.
By the mid-1970s, as Amtrak repainted its inherited equipment and took delivery of new Superliner and Turboliner cars, the rainbow era faded. The last of the mismatched fleets disappeared from daily service by around 1980. Today the term survives mainly in railroad history circles and among those who remember spotting a train with ten different paint jobs in a single string of cars, a reminder of Amtrak's chaotic beginning.