General Motors needed to apply railroad logos to the Diesel locomotives they bought. Sometimes GM artists would enhance those logos, particularly when they were placed on the noses of the locomotives. Basic art work for the logos was often done by Barbara Luse.

Click image to download a 6.0-MB PDF with 40 railroad logos.

Greg Palumbo photographed 40 paintings of such logos, though they are showing some signs of age including yellowing at the borders. I’ve included all 40 paintings in the above PDF. Most of these logos are signed by Luse, but two are signed Bockewitz and one is signed J.J.H. The few that are dated are from 1946.

Click image for a larger view.

Luse also did at least one painting of a locomotive, an F3 that would be purchased by the Western Railway of Alabama in 1948. That railroad was financially controlled by the Georgia Railroad, which explains why “Georgia” is on the nose.

As painted, the bottom blue stripe dipped down on the nose to make room for the Georgia logo. Apparently, the buyer preferred to have the bottom blue stripe parallel the top one, as shown by the green pieces of paper taped onto the painting. That is the paint scheme that was adopted.