The New Look Of N1 Up Close. South Brooklyn Railway N1 (General Electric 47T, R47) was sitting in the Simpson Street (2/5 Line) Station in the Bronx, New York, during the early morning hours of September 6, 2026. The history of the South Brooklyn Railway (SBK) begins with its creation and private ownership as a freight railroad in 1887. It was later consolidated into the BMT, and in 1940, control was assumed by the City of New York. When new diesels N1 and N2 were purchased in the mid-1970s, then South Brooklyn Railway Freight Manager John Johnson asked local author and transit enthusiast Ben Schaeffer to design a new logo and paint scheme for the pair. Ben not only supplied a design that was accepted with large "SBK" letters and red accented by white, but later went to work for the MTA NYCT Subway as a conductor, where he was working in his 22nd year in May 2020 when he passed away from COVID-19. The locomotive was recently repainted into the standard MTA NYCT Subway C Division's standard yellow paint scheme for locomotives, with only the "N1” designation as a reminder of its true assignment. The only historic part of the new paint scheme is, ironically, the vintage two-tone M “New York City/Transit” logo on the side of the cab, which this locomotive never had during its first 50 or so years of operation.

Full resolution pics and prints:
https://www.riverrailphoto.com/nyctsubwaydivisionc

MTA NYCT Subway: https://www.riverrailphoto.com/nycsubway