(1) When I paint my Kato Mikado for MILW, should I shave the rivets from the area in which the tender herald (nowadays called a logo) goes? In other words, was the herald on a separate sheet metal plate that was attached to the tender side? That's what it sometimes looks like in photos I've seen, but I'm by no means sure. (2) Did any MILW DL109's ever received the UP style paint scheme? They were out of service by 1960, but there's a three or four year period before that when it would have been possible. Thanks for any help y'all can give me!
Sorry, I can't help you on the steam question but here's what I know about the DL109s. They were painted 4 different times but I don't believe they were ever yellow. The 1941 as delivered paint scheme with the yellow stripe up the hood and windshield only lasted about a year until they were painted in the more subtle scheme that matched the E6 pair #15 A & B. After WWII, they got the Erie Built scheme. In 1950 they got the orange with the maroon band and black roof scheme. In 1953 and after 3 million miles of service they were shopped for rebuilding and emerged with EMD bulldog style noses and the same 1950 maroon band/ black roof scheme. The lastest picture I have seen of 14B is August 30 1964 and it is still in orange/ maroon paint. The yolk and smoke scheme would look nice on these if you wanted to do a "what if" fantasy paint job. HTH, Jim
Thanks, Jim, I appreciate the info. Walthers is selling undec DL109's for $17 each, and I thought I might paint a couple up, but the black/orange scheme (with the thin black outline) is too tricky for me, so I guess I will pass. There's too much other stuff I don't have money for anyway! About steam locomotive painting practice: the next time one of you sees the 261, could you look at the tender herald and report back? I can't tell from my own photos of it.
MILW 261 (4-8-4) with welded tender has what appear to be nine bolts mounting the herald to the tender--see RailPictures.Net, 235975. I don't know if the welded tender or the herald mounting were used during the days of steam.
raysaron, thanks! It appears to me that mounting the herald on a plate was more or less standard practice with steam. In fact, I can see bolts on some diesels where the herald is attached under the cab window. My concern with decaling was whether the rivets should be visible. With a sheet metal plate, I'd say No.
Just a thought to see if anyone else has noticed how similar the Milwaukee's orange and black scheme was to the Bessemer Lake Erie on some of its units?
Gosh, you've been doing some serious research on this board! I'd forgotten that I had posted my request (and had got responses--thank you, all!) but yes, the two schemes are very similar. Doubtless in some cases (with fading and weathering) the orange and black on some units of each road would turn out to match. (The older B&LE scheme had a black band around the middle, but once they eliminated that they appeared to emulate the MILW scheme, although the black on top is shorter on the B&LE.) Here's an example: http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/ble/ble658abn.jpg http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/milw/milw156abp.jpg As to the original topic of this thread, I ended up using a couple layers of clear decal underneath the herald to give it some depth. Here's an MP Pacific I modified somewhat. I left Archer rivets off the area of the herald.
Hello David, that is a good looking engine! How did you modify the trailing axle: Just cut of the sideframes or swapping it? Cheers Dirk
Thanks for the kind words, Dirk, Basically I did just cut off the outside frame of the trailing truck. The Model Power wheel is spoked (useful for NP modelers!) and the axle is held in place between the wheels. The only other modification was to fill up the space on the chassis above the truck to represent the supporting structure under the cab.
I guess I just like good housekeeping on a forum. I was just posing the theory, as I thought I had the chance to grab a BLE SD7, and the paints scheme was virtually identical to a few of the Milwaukee SD7s: only a minor bit of redecaling was needed. I'll still have try and grab an SD7 at some point, although I really would like to try an MILW SD10 at some point. The Pacific does look very nice! Also has a nice little splash of orange on the side of the dark brooding steam loco.
