Hi all never occurred to me before but why did the Burlington route paint the Steam locos cab roof red? I'm just touching up the paint on one of my Z gauge ones prior to this years Zedex and wonder if there is some cunning reason Kev
The Great Northern did the same to some of they're steam locos as well. Especially the "Glacier" scheme.
I wish I knew. Numerous roads east and west did this; some even did it on tender decks. I once read that the paint was actually a leaded primer, so was durable and resisted the hot cinders and soot that fell upon it, and that the cab roof was largely out of sight, so its appearance in black wasn't important. Neither of these explanations seem satisfactory to me, but perhaps they're right. Or maybe the railroads just thought it looked cool and if so, they were right.
Same reason shipbuilders did below the water line--that red paint was hard for barnacles to stick to. Or maybe not...?
Originally that paint had the nickname "red lead", as it did have a slug of lead in it. This may have been the reason it was created and used on ship bottoms, to discourage barnacles from attaching. It did help deter corrosion.
Red lead primer is well known across the world. The Marklin Z 2-8-2 isn't right as they have done it more like a Crimson and it looks plain wrong. Funnily enough I had an MG Maestro car that featured a lot of red lead but that because of the rampant rust and bodyfiller! Kev
