CONFIRMATION: There Were NO Grey Niagaras!

I will post Mr. Gerbracht's response when I receive it!  

Old B/W photos are not definitive If trying to judge whether a locomotive was black, dirty black or gray. Often if I am making photos of a black loco and I want detail deep in the shadows to be visible I overexpose and cut the development time. Depending on how much you overexpose and how much you cut the development time you can end up with little if any black.  I am not saying that the Niagara in your photo was not gray but the photo is not something to take as a definitive statement. I have played with your photo in Photoshop a couple of minutes and you can see I have made the dark areas much closer to black. The loco was very strongly side lit had very deep shadows and I am sure the photographer used overexposure and under developed to cut overall contrast.  J

It is spelled NIAGARA.....John A from NIAGARA FALLS, on the NIAGARA RIVER, in NIAGARA COUNTY

John A posted:

It is spelled NIAGARA.....John A from NIAGARA FALLS, on the NIAGARA RIVER, in NIAGARA COUNTY

John, are you on River Rd. Or Buffalo Ave? I’m on River in Wheatfield.

AL- I am in Niagara Falls (NY),  Cliff Street....by the gorge.   John A

Grey any steam locomotive no matter from what road is yuck in my opinion.

As Hot Water will point out, sometimes in builder's photos, the engine will have been painted gray in order to photograph better.

 JOHNA: THANK YOU for pointing out my glaring spelling error! It has been corrected. I am usually more careful with both spelling and grammar in my posts. My sincere apologies to anyone I may have inadvertently offended by my careless mistake!

Tom Gerbracht is a board member of the New York Central Historical Society and the author of Know Thy Niagaras. As mentioned above, I am awaiting his response to my question regarding the grey livery, and will post it here when received.  

Steam locomotives come in all colors.So why should any one be shocked.I mean some where blue ,green red and black or yellow black and orange.And some were brown and there was one that was two tone blue.

seaboardm2 posted:

Steam locomotives come in all colors.So why should any one be shocked.

Who claimed they were/are "shocked"?

I mean some where blue ,green red and black or yellow black and orange.And some were brown and there was one that was two tone blue.

Apples and oranges! We are discussing New York Central Niagara class locomotives here.

At age 75, those who know me best, my family, know that I possess a near "photographic memory" in which I can recall very specific details from my past, including my early childhood. It is somewhat uncanny, and even somewhat unnerving, how I can remember the time and place of many events from yesteryear! I actually have these almost still images of long ago events in my brain and remember them as it were only yesterday. Growing up in New York City (Brooklyn and Queens), I rode many trains on all the railroads in and around Manhattan, and spent many an hour in GCT. Now, I am NOT claiming to have a flawless recall, but that day with my uncle on that platform is etched in my memory. I particularly remember that off-center smokebox door, the high headlight and those smoke deflectors. And at that point in my life, I had never actually seen, in person, a GREY steam engine! I may never know for certain, but perhaps Mr. Gerbracht might verify the one-time existence of such a livery. 

Art,

Interesting story. First, what NYC depot was it that you saw this locomotive? Also, I wonder if the locomotive just might have been an L4b, with smoke lifters and that Selkirk front smoke box arrangement (although I don't know if NYC ever had any gray Mohawks either)? 

Other photos of 6000 aren't very helpful either. Its odd the way they were taken. Theres nothing in the background, its like it was in a fog or snowstorm. 

This one looks more typical.

smd4 posted:

As Hot Water will point out, sometimes in builder's photos, the engine will have been painted gray in order to photograph better.

Agree.  The photo posted here is an Alco builders photo.  Steam locomotive builders usually painted one locomotive in a production order in a flat, grayer paint than the (usually) gloss black finish they were eventually delivered to the railroad in.  I think the idea of using the flat gray paint is that it highlighted detail better and made for a better visual record of the as-delivered state than would have been obtained if the locomotive had been painted gloss black.  Also common in builders photos were whitewall tires and white-painted running boards, even though the railroad customers may not have painted them that way for service.

RickO posted:

Other photos of 6000 aren't very helpful either. Its odd the way they were taken. Theres nothing in the background, its like it was in a fog or snowstorm. 

This one looks more typical.

The backgrounds were usually washed out in the darkroom.  The purpose of the builders photo is to highlight the locomotive, not the background clutter.

Rusty

RickO posted:

Other photos of 6000 aren't very helpful either. Its odd the way they were taken. Theres nothing in the background, its like it was in a fog or snowstorm. 

This one looks more typical.

 

Those are photos from the ALCO Company Photographer, and the negatives have been VERY carefully "touched-up" in order to eliminate anything & everything in the background. I seem to recall that one of the builders (either ALCO or Lima) even had a whole wall of one of their buildings completely whitewashed, so when placing a new locomotive directly in front of that wall, all the "white" would show through any openings, and thus it was much easier for the guys in the photo lab, to re-touch that negative. The end result, is what is seen above.

HOT WATER: My uncle and I were standing on the uncovered platform of the Poughkeepsie, NY station about 1951-52, and the train was pulling in southbound for Harmon, where we would switch over to electric power.

Mr. Gerbracht is the go-to Niagara expert, so maybe we can get a definitive answer!  :-)

Locomotive builders often posed new engines against a plain wall (no windows etc.) in their plant, as this made it easier for the photo retouchers to remove the background - which was the usual practice for builders photos.

It wasn't unusual for car builders to paint one freight car (boxcar, gondola etc.) in an order gray with black lettering for a builder's photo, even though the actual production cars were black or boxcar red or whatever with white lettering....

I have seen models of a rather large NYC/PLE locomotive in olive green.  I have steam models painted purple (Baldwin 60000) and blue (MoPac) and even metallic blue (a Seaboard Mountain).  Not saying they all have prototypes.

I recall seeing an SP Mogul with orange lettering.  It is possible I was confusing it with the Diesel that came around the next year.

The Selkirk front end has an unusual look.  As if the locomotive was straining.....or stern.

Black and especially gloss black is the worst color to show contours. A shade of grey would easily show contours.

Having some show car experience, the most impressive color car when you stand close to it, is a perfectly painted gloss black with a few coats of clear and with an excellent polish. The paint can appear two or three feet deep. But the same car from a distance, what made it look fantastic up close, nearly masks all of the contours of the car.

wjstix posted:

Locomotive builders often posed new engines against a plain wall (no windows etc.) in their plant, as this made it easier for the photo retouchers to remove the background - which was the usual practice for builders photos.

It wasn't unusual for car builders to paint one freight car (boxcar, gondola etc.) in an order gray with black lettering for a builder's photo, even though the actual production cars were black or boxcar red or whatever with white lettering....

I wondered about that. I have seen German locomotives in "works colors" usually a grey or white. Many builder shots in the US have any glass, windows, marker lights etc, painted over in white, with the locomotives being painted black.

Two books by Al Stauffer, both extensive works about NYC locomotives, do not mention or provide photo evidence that any NYC locomotives except for the streamlined Hudsons, were ever painted any color other than black with graphite smoke boxes.

but you never can tell for sure!

Tom

Mr. Gerbracht, author of Know Thy Niagaras, confirmed via e-mail that, to the best of his knowledge, there were NO GREY Niagaras, but he suggested that due to deferred cosmetic maintenance towards the end of the steam era, what I remembered was probably just a dirty, faded black locomotive with a graphited smokebox. Therefore, I stand corrected!  

So what's your take on Lionel's painting of a Niagara to grey... with the 20th Century stripes too!

And would HOTWATER allow such a loco on his personal layout anyhow?

It will probably sell very well, like the Daylight painted SP cab-forward.  I don't care if the model companies sell fantasy paint schemes as long as they state it in the catalog description.

prrhorseshoecurve posted:

So what's your take on Lionel's painting of a Niagara to grey... with the 20th Century stripes too!

Pure fantasy! 

And would HOTWATER allow such a loco on his personal layout anyhow?

Nope

So here's a question.  If a locomotive is gray (or grey if you are English) because of weathering, is that any less real than if it was painted that exact same color when put into service?  The Committee for the Defense of the Prototype will be meeting soon, and presumably would appreciate input .

Landsteiner posted:

So here's a question.  If a locomotive is gray (or grey if you are English) because of weathering, is that any less real than if it was painted that exact same color when put into service?  The Committee for the Defense of the Prototype will be meeting soon, and presumably would appreciate input .

The difference is  a locomotive that has "grayed" due to weathering is inconsistent shades of gray over the entire locomotive, not a uniform "factory fresh" shade applied by the paint shop per the builder's or railroad's painting guide.

If we use the logic of weathered gray as paint shop gospel, IC Mikado's were painted gray:

Rusty

Rats! This was a compelling thread, now someones gonna say theres no bigfoot either.

If you don't mind one more question. Did a black Niagara ever have stripes on tender sides ? When I bought my very first Niagara model by Williams it came with a set of decal stripes for the sides.

prrhorseshoecurve posted:

So what's your take on Lionel's painting of a Niagara to grey... with the 20th Century stripes too!

 

If you want the correct one and they produce it who cares about fantasy schemes they devise? Now if they pretend those are correct...

I have never seen any photographs of Niagara tenders with stripes, just NEW YORK CENTRAL on the sides.

WHAT????? THERE'S NO BIG FOOT?!?!?!?!

With ALL due deference to our resident steam expert, HOT WATER, I personally LIKE the Lionel "20th Century" grey version with the tender stripes, though I shall not purchase one for fiscal reasons. Furthermore, the NYC would have been well-served, at least from an aesthetic standpoint, had they produced one in the Lionel grey scheme!  :-)

No grey Niagaras does make sense for when they were built for the NYC.  Black was the dominant color of the period for the railroad even including the first two E7's delivered as well as freight units.  They represented the best of Alco.  Too bad their lives were a bit short.

After watching hundreds of B&O steam when  I was a youngster, I think Art can be forgiven...I can't remember anything but new EM 1's being black. Grey, that patina of dirt that seems to cover most steam engines in well used service, is what I remember most as the color of most Mikes, Pacifics, others, and for that matter, the many Consolidations of the Western Maryland, also near my home town.

Ed

Someone really needed confirmation on this?