GN 4-8-4 S-2 Northern engine colors? GN fans out there help?

@Engineer-Joe posted:

I'm looking at painting an engine I got, or not. It is unpainted right now. It is a MTH version of the S2

MTH GN S2 4-8-4 engineering sample | O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum (ogaugerr.com)

I can't help wondering about the colors. Except for a few, I thought most steam was painted black. I figure that maybe the GN painted these S2 colors and this is an as delivered scheme?

So my question is were these colors maintained until retirement? I searched a little and only found this

Great Northern Empire - Then and Now

the restored or should I say the preserved versions I've seen seem to have even lighter colors?

0666 GREAT NORTHERN 4-8-4 TYPE STEAM LOCOMOTIVE #2584, HAVRE, MT – North America By Rail

Is that just sunlight fading?

I found this in black and white

Great Northern 4-8-4 #2579 Class S2 | Built 1930 by Baldwin … | Flickr

Can you point me to where I can find more info?

Because of the vandy type tender and the style and details of the engine, I figure it should be kept in GN colors?? Are there other choices that would match the engine's details?

Have you contacted the GN Historical Society? The various colors also depend on exactly what era you are trying to model/duplicate.

Info in the fourth paragraph.  The Great Northern Empire site.

Rusty

Best color reference, IMO, for the GN S-Class 4-8-4’s is the book “Great Northern Steam and Electric, In Color”, by David Hickcox. On pages 60-61 is a great photo of S-1 #2555 freshly painted and in sunlight outside the Hillyard (Spokane) shops on 10/09/1951. S-2 painting would have been nearly identical.

I have the first-run MTH S-2 and IMO they did an excellent job on these, including colors.

@Rusty Traque posted:

Info in the fourth paragraph. The Great Northern Empire site.

Rusty

"By the 1950s all engines had received the more economical all-black paint scheme."

Thank you. I missed that line.

@The GN Man posted:

Best color reference, IMO, for the GN S-Class 4-8-4’s is the book “Great Northern Steam and Electric, In Color”, by David Hickcox. On pages 60-61 is a great photo of S-1 #2555 freshly painted and in sunlight outside the Hillyard (Spokane) shops on 10/09/1951. S-2 painting would have been nearly identical.

I have the first-run MTH S-2 and IMO they did an excellent job on these, including colors.

That's a great pic. I found it now.

One issue with GN models is that the green-boilered "Glacier Park" scheme was never an official GN scheme, so an engine assigned to one division might be in that scheme, while the same type of engine on a different part of the railroad would have a black boiler.