I should know this, but I don't, and I haven't been able to come up with any information on it. I know that Rio Grande painted some of its standard gauge steam with green boilers, but I'm not sure when. Does anyone know if the 'green' boilers lasted into the WWII era? I've just acquired a nice little Key brass 'baby' 3400 series 2-8-8-2, and I think it would look neat with a green boiler. I model the era between 1939 and 1952, so I'm wondering if it would be appropriate. Any information would really be appreciated. Tom :tb-biggrin:
Please visit the research done at Utah Rails... very informative. http://utahrails.net/drgw/drgw-green-boilers.php At a glance looks like 3400 and 3407 had green boilers at sometime in their late service life. Josh
Josh: Thanks so much for the information. Evidently I'd be okay with the 3400, as most of my Rio Grande steamers still sport the pre-1940 Tricolor herald on the tenders (this is a personal choice, only a few of my locos have the 'flying' Rio Grande). Color photos I've seen show a shade somewhere between the Pennsy's "Brunswick" green and the GN's "Glacier Green." Dark green but not green-black. Again, thanks for the information. It's been a HUGE help! Tom
Yep, the good ol' green boiler steamers. Much like the painting fiascos encountered with the diesels. Bumblebee, 4 stripe, single stripe... are the end cabs black or gold yadda yadda yadda. You almost have to not only pick a year to model, but almost pick the month, week and darn near the DAY to get all the locos and rolling stock on the same page. But I'll leave that to hardcore rivet counters (much as I was when I modeled HOn3) now I have F7 units alongside Tunnelmotors. Josh
Ultimately, it was up to the paint shop... I think Josh has it right. There are numerous variations on all the Rio Grande paint schemes. Take silver-painted trucks on F units for example. I think the paint shop had a lot of latitude to experiment... and if there wasn't too much work to do, I think they sometimes lavished special attention on a particular unit. The bottom line is, steam engines got green boilers if the paint shop felt like painting the boiler green. Just how often they did this, and how the pattern changed over time, is anyone's guess. Perhaps you'd get closest to the prototype by drawing straws to determine which of your locos get green boilers!
What's interesting is the link I provided and the "internal" documents... especially those concerning "Russian Black" Some shops interpreted that as actual BLACK paint, others knew it was the special GREEN paint. Other shops didn't know or didn't care. Pretty interesting. That's a good point about silver trucks. Not to mention the small group oof F7 units that remained in 4 stripe until the early 70s. The limited Aspen Leaf paint job on the Alco P units is another. A beautiful simple paint job, but they ditched it as quick as they could. Josh
I think I agree with everyone on the Rio Grande color schemes, LOL! It just MIGHT depend on the day and the hour and the attitude involved. Evidently some of the green-painted steamers also got oxide red cab roofs (talk about a GN clone!). In fact, I have some color video of a 3700 Baldwin challenger with a black boiler, but I swear to God that it has a red cab roof! So I'm going to go ahead. #3400 gets a green boiler and tricolor herald. What the Hey. I'll post some photos as soon as I get the mechanism running smoothly and the little lady painted. Tom
Just shook up my Floquil 'dark' green. Actually, it looks pretty close to both of the photos. Think I'll stick with that color. We'll see when I FINALLY get the Little Lady painted, hopefull sometime this weekend. Great video, BTW! Tom
