When I see pictures of steam locomotives from the Reading Company, the engines are painted black. When I go to the railroad museum of PA and look at the Pennsy locomotives, they are all black as well. But all of the major manufacturers of model trains are now painting the nose end of the locomotive grey and the rest of the body black. What's up with that? In real life did they have grey paint for the first 20% of the locomotive and then the rest was painted black? Lionel, MTH, and K-Line all paint the new locomotives that they put out with a grey nose end. Dan R. Lancaster, PA
The grey or silver paint on the first part of the boiler area is the smoke box. That was the hottest part of the ehgine and paint would not stick, so it was covered with a graphite type material that would not peel off. All that is not to be confused with the lagging that covered the rest of the engine and was indeed painted some color, usually black. Also, the silver nose and engine front was a safety issue. In the days of black and white photography, a lot of the manufacturers' photos had the engine or car painted grey to show the details in the photo. This was a one-of-a-kind coloring; it was not used in service. Hope this helps. I have heard about the exact type of graphite material that was used, but I don't know all the details.
