In 2021 Amtrak celebrated its 50th anniversary, running intercity passenger trains in the United States since May 1, 1971. Taking a similar approach to celebrating their 40th anniversary ten years earlier, for the 50th Amtrak painted six more locomotives in special paint schemes - some based on liveries from Amtrak's past, and others brand-new designs and takes on current paint schemes.

In this video, I captured one of the special 50th Anniversary locomotives, as well as another specially painted unit that came out shortly afterwards, as they pulled the westbound California Zephyr on two different days into Ottumwa, Iowa, for the first time in their new looks. On June 5th, 2022, we see the arrival of the Zephyr with AMTK 203 in the lead. 203 has been painted in a special yellow and black paint scheme to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Operation Lifesaver, an organization promoting railroad grade crossing safety and awareness (website: https://oli.org). The engine was on its way to Denver, Colorado to be on display for the International Level Crossing Awareness Day conference.

Just a few days later, another special locomotive led the westbound Zephyr through Ottumwa on June 8th, 2022 - AMTK 160, one of the 50th Anniversary-painted Amtrak diesels. This engine wears a striking re-creation of Amtrak's "Dash 8" variation of the Phase III paint scheme. Nicknamed "Pepsi Can" by railfans, this Phase III variant was applied to the railroad's twenty Dash 8-32BWH diesels. The wide stripes and criss-cross pattern was created specially to flow across the Dash 8's carbody, similar to other Dash 8 freight locomotives of the time. GE built the Dash 8's for Amtrak to help fill a gap during a locomotive shortage, before the first Genesis P40's started to arrive in the early 1990's. Engine 160 is the first locomotive other than a Dash 8 to wear this special livery. An interesting side note, all 20 of Amtrak's Dash 8's still exist today, however all have been repainted.

I hope you enjoyed this video! Be sure to subscribe to my channel for more videos of Amtrak trains and other trains around the Midwest, and beyond! Check out the "Amtrak Special Appearances" playlist for many other videos of special Amtrak equipment, including all of Amtrak's 40th Anniversary heritage units.
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