New York Central’s Jade Green E Units

Published: November 1, 2026

In 1961 the New York Central tried an experimental green on three passenger diesels. The locomotives were E8A 4053, E8A 4083, and E7B 4107. The paint standard called the color Century Green. Railroaders and fans have long called the same color Jade Green. It was the freight-car color, tried on an E unit while the railroad was choosing a simpler image for the passenger fleet. Black, gray, and green were painted up together. Dark gray won.

The reason is on the record. John Reehling, the Central’s chief mechanical officer, is quoted by the United Railroad Historical Society of New Jersey, which now owns 4083: “The dark grey gave the best appearance. There was not enough stenciling as on a boxcar to break up the wide expanse of just plain green.” Century Green stayed on the freight equipment. The passenger diesels took dark gray, the cigar-band herald, and a single light stripe.

New York Central E8A 4053 in Jade Green at Harmon, New York, September 1961

New York Central E8A 4053 at Harmon, New York, in September 1961, in Jade Green. The paint standard called this color Century Green. The white stripe and the spelled-out road name are the simplified cigar-band arrangement. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: The three locomotives · What the railroad was testing · Why dark gray won · 4083 afterward

The three locomotives

Two of the three were E8A cabs, 2,250 horsepower, classed by the Central as passenger A units. The third was an E7B booster, 2,000 horsepower, with no cab of its own. Together they make the A-B-A the society describes. The E7 page covers that model. The classes, serials, and dates below follow the Central’s own diesel roster and the Electro-Motive order lists.

Road no.	Model	Class	Order	Serial	Built
4053	E8A	DPA-5B	6291	15312	November 1951–March 1952
4083	E8A	DPA-5E	2055	18541	August 1953
4107	E7B	DPB-1B	E751B	4182	April 1947

No. 4053 is the last locomotive in a block of nine, 4045 through 4053, serials 15304 through 15312. The order list gives that block as November 1951 through March 1952, so the table keeps the span. No. 4083 is the twentieth unit of order 2055. Road number 4064 is serial 18522, which puts 4083 at 18541, and the society’s roster dates that locomotive to August 1953. No. 4107 is the last of four E7B boosters, 4104 through 4107, serials 4179 through 4182, order E751B, all of them April 1947.

What the railroad was testing

The lightning stripe had been the passenger diesel image since the late 1940s: two-tone gray, with an angled stripe along the carbody. By the turn of the 1960s the Central was after something simpler. The new mark was an oval reading New York Central System, the cigar band, and one light stripe in place of the lightning. The society says the railroad commissioned three test schemes in that search, black, gray, and Century Green, to replace the lightning stripe.

Century Green was already the freight color. Thomas R. Gerbracht, writing for the New York Central System Historical Society, measured a DuPont Century Green master that had come out of a former employee’s file with a note dated August 11, 1981. The masters were old colors, long out of the DuPont line by the time the note was written. Gerbracht’s conclusion was that the Century Green plate closely resembles color photographs of the test painting of E8s 4053 and 4083 and E7B 4107. The same study identifies the dark gray and the light gray as the colors on the railroad’s paint-and-lettering drawings for the passenger diesels.

The green was on 4053 by September 1961, when both photographs on this page were made at Harmon. A year earlier, in September 1960, Richard Leonard photographed 4053 on a Boston & Albany commuter train into South Station, from the St. Mary’s Street overpass, and he dates the jade experiment to 1961. Harmon was the natural place to line the samples up. Electric locomotives came off the Hudson Division trains there, and the diesels went on for the run west.

Why dark gray won

Reehling’s objection was about the side of the locomotive. A boxcar in Century Green carries reporting marks, numbers, and dimensional data, and that lettering breaks the color. An E unit in the simplified scheme carries the road name, a number, and a stripe. On 4053 the name is spelled out along the flank in full. The green still reads as one wide field. Dark gray, he said, simply looked better.

The Nowak photograph at Harmon is the comparison. Three E8As stand together in the three test colors. From the left, 4055 is black, 4053 is Jade Green, and 4056 is dark gray. Each has the oval herald on the nose and the single light stripe. The black and the gray cabs are samples of the other two schemes. They are separate locomotives. The green trio remains 4053, 4083, and 4107.

New York Central E8As 4055, 4053, and 4056 in black, Jade Green, and dark gray at Harmon, New York, September 1961

E8As 4055, 4053, and 4056 at Harmon, New York, in September 1961. From the left, 4055 is black, 4053 is Jade Green, and 4056 is dark gray. Each wears the cigar-band herald and a single light stripe. Ed Nowak photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Dark gray, with that herald and that stripe, became the passenger diesel scheme. Century Green remained the color of the freight cars and the cabooses, where the lettering does the work Reehling said the E unit lacked. The Great Steel Fleet went on behind the gray cabs.

4083 afterward

The United Railroad Historical Society of New Jersey keeps 4083 at Boonton. The society’s account gives the builder line already in the table, August 1953 and serial 18541, and follows the unit onward as NJDOT and NJ Transit 4326. It calls 4083 the last E8 in Penn Central black to run in New Jersey service, and the third and last E8 rebuilt at Conrail’s Elizabethport shop, that work finished in August 1981. The locomotive was donated to the museum collection in 1995 and restored to Century Green in 2014.

Sources

United Railroad Historical Society of New Jersey, equipment roster for NYC 4083, including the 2017 archived text. Three test schemes, black, gray, and Century Green. The Reehling quotation. August 1953, serial 18541. Elizabethport rebuild completed August 1981. Donated in 1995. Dennis A. Livesey’s October 1, 2018 caption of the Boonton locomotive quotes the society’s later wording: NJDOT and NJ Transit 4326, and the 2014 return to Century Green.
Thomas R. Gerbracht, “COLOR… A final word?”, New York Central System Historical Society, nycshs.org/nyc-colors. The DuPont Century Green master, accompanying note dated August 11, 1981, and the comparison with photographs of 4053, 4083, and 4107. Dark gray and light gray as the passenger-diesel colors on the paint-and-lettering drawings.
Richard Leonard, “EMD E-8 4053”, railarchive.net. September 1960 photograph at St. Mary’s Street, Boston & Albany, and the dating of the jade experiment to 1961.
New York Central diesel roster on this site. Classes DPA-5B, DPA-5E, and DPB-1B, with the serial spans used in the table.
Electro-Motive order lists compiled by John R. Kristopans. Order 6291A, serials 15304–15312, road numbers 4045–4053, November 1951–March 1952. Order 2055A, serials 18522–18553, road numbers 4064–4095, June–September 1953. The A on those two order numbers is that list’s cab-unit marker, so the table prints 6291 and 2055. Order E751B, serials 4179–4182, road numbers 4104–4107, April 1947.
Ed Nowak, Harmon, New York, September 1961. E8As 4055, 4053, and 4056 in the three test colors.

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