by Andrew » October 28, 2021, 7:58 am
I've been curious about this topic for a while, and it has a couple parts, so here goes:
The Cliffs ships seem to have regularly changing paint schemes on their upperworks, such as adding/removing blue and grey stripes and such. Normally, the rest of the great lakes shipping fleets have standard colors, but these ships seem to have varying degrees of color schemes that doesn't always follow a pattern. For instance, the Sykes now has the blue stripe under the bridge windows, which the other two don't; the other two, though, have grey windowpanes on the bridge windows. And these colors/stripes seem to change from time to time, especially on the Sykes the last several years. Most recently, the blue stripe on the Texas deck was painted white and the unloading boom base was painted with a grey stripe like in the Inland days. The question I have is who decides this? Does the fleet give a lot of leeway to these captains to decorate their boats how they see fit? I just don't see it on other fleets, so curious about the Cliffs exception.
There seem to be a couple ships (Frontenac. Kaye Barker, Herbert C. Jackson, CSL Laurentien, CSL Assiniboine) that have grey or black bridge windowpanes. Again, who decides this? And is there a reason for this besides aesthetics (e.g. glare reduction, etc.)? Always seems strange to me that there might be one or two ships in the fleet with that look and the others don't have it.
I know the GLF boats have the red hull for USS, the grey stripe for the Bradley fleet, but what does the black stripe stand for? I love the paint scheme but just curious where it comes from and who thought of it. A very unique scheme for sure.
Thank you in advance!
I've been curious about this topic for a while, and it has a couple parts, so here goes:
The Cliffs ships seem to have regularly changing paint schemes on their upperworks, such as adding/removing blue and grey stripes and such. Normally, the rest of the great lakes shipping fleets have standard colors, but these ships seem to have varying degrees of color schemes that doesn't always follow a pattern. For instance, the Sykes now has the blue stripe under the bridge windows, which the other two don't; the other two, though, have grey windowpanes on the bridge windows. And these colors/stripes seem to change from time to time, especially on the Sykes the last several years. Most recently, the blue stripe on the Texas deck was painted white and the unloading boom base was painted with a grey stripe like in the Inland days. The question I have is who decides this? Does the fleet give a lot of leeway to these captains to decorate their boats how they see fit? I just don't see it on other fleets, so curious about the Cliffs exception.
There seem to be a couple ships (Frontenac. Kaye Barker, Herbert C. Jackson, CSL Laurentien, CSL Assiniboine) that have grey or black bridge windowpanes. Again, who decides this? And is there a reason for this besides aesthetics (e.g. glare reduction, etc.)? Always seems strange to me that there might be one or two ships in the fleet with that look and the others don't have it.
I know the GLF boats have the red hull for USS, the grey stripe for the Bradley fleet, but what does the black stripe stand for? I love the paint scheme but just curious where it comes from and who thought of it. A very unique scheme for sure.
Thank you in advance!