I have an SD40-2 and a GP40-2 to paint. One CSX and one Conrail. Was it the norm to paint the walkways and steps black or were the walkways covered with a non skid surface of some type. Some images look black but a lot look like the body color with some kind of non slip surface medium applied. Thanks for any info.- John
I think they should all have some kind of safety tread. Cannon and Company makes etched kits that go on top of the smooth model walkways. Newer models like Kato and Scaletrains often have this feature molded in. It is a diamond-tread, rather than the sandpaper-like grip tape on skateboard decks. So in a way, yes they were covered with a non-skid surface, but they were still painted black. The color may depend on the individual unit or paint scheme though. Black was pretty common, some units could have still been blue. BNSF had red walkways on some early Dash 9s, so the color can vary. The end steps are usually perforated metal, similar to etched metal roofwalks, but with round holes. The Cannon walkway tread kit comes with the steps too. You can cut out the solid plastic steps or just glue the etched ones on top. https://shop.cannonandco.net/category.sc?categoryId=16 This photo I found online shows the tread texture of the walkway. You can see it in the bottom corner. This website (http://www.nsdash9.com/locodetails.html) also has a lot of good locomotive detail photos, this NS locomotive (ex-CR) has another view on the walkway tread. It looks like the battery boxes stayed blue on top, but the walkways are black. You can see the long hood walkways at the top of the photo that also look black. The black paint is wearing off in spots, so that could be where your blue examples are coming from. It is hard to tell if this is weathering or paint though. Is it blue weathering to black or is it black peeling to blue? Some Athearn Genesis models have blue or black walkways, so it could go either way. You would need some documentation or photograph of your unit to be sure.
I wish I had a closer shot. I was a welder for 42 years and made cat walks for machinery from diamond plate and perforated metal. That looks suspiciously like some kind of diamond pattern and almost looks like scuffed up blue. The steps are that nasty perforated crap I hated working with, guaranteed cut fingers! The only thing worse was expanded metal which was very sharp if you stuck your fingers in the expanded diamonds to lift it without gloves! Ask me how I know.- John
For Conrail it depends, if the unit was purchased new after the start of Conrail, the walkways were black, if it was an inherited unit from one of the predecessor roads than the entire unit was painted blue, any black walkways were after the paint wore off. Conrail made an effort to paint the units as soon as possible especially the ex-PC units as they did not want to be associated with the Penn-Central bankruptcy, although a few black units were still around with the PC painted out and CR painted in its place. Rick Jesionowski
