Santa Fe Northerns - what colour......

One of the "In Color" books has an early, somewhat fuzzy picture of 2929(I believe) and the smokebox front appeared to be graphite. Still, it was hard to tell.

But most of the photo's I've seen the smokebox front on the 2900's appears black.

Rusty

Thanks Rusty. Anyone else got anything to add or better still a photo?

CHEERS MIKE

Some were painted black, especially after 1950.

All the photo's I have seen show they were black.

Anyhow, while it may not be 100% correct for most cases, I like graphite better:


(S Scale models shown...)

Rusty

quote:

All the photo's I have seen show they were black.

Two things enter into the debate.

One, according to Stan Kistler noted photographer and historian is, "unless you can be sure of the type of film on which a vintage photo yas, Ortho or Pan, judging a shade of gray as a specific color can be misleading." Which is to say that the color gray can look anywhere from black to silver or white. I probably have at least a 100 photos of Santa Fe steam, not to mention books. For the most part the boiler fronts were Tarpon Gray which is another debate in itself. But the photos many times, especially if the boiler front was in the shade, can be taken for black.

The second thing is that the "Steam Locomotive Painting, Lettering & Detail Guide for Model Railroaders", published by the Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society states that Tarpon Gray was the official standard color from 1927 to just after WWII. There is a lot more to it than that but the suggestion for modeling was that unless you were modeling a specific engine and had photos to the contrary, use Tarpon Gray and Aluminum lettering.

The recent Lionel Santa Fe Northern's used the wrong color for the boiler front.

The 3rd Rail engine coming out at the end of this month is correct. Noted Santa Fe historian was the consultant for the engine.



All that said, I'll always defer to Number 90.

BTW the difference between the color of Rusty's boiler front and the 3rd Rail boiler front is largely due to lighting. The 3rd Rail boiler fronts are darker than in the picture.

Here's more prototype photos"

They both have Tarpon Gray boiler fronts.





Here is something else to read:

Key Model Imports upcoming ATSF Northerns

3rd Rail did 2900 Class Version 2. Whether or not it is apparent, most of the Northerns pictured in the Key article, have Tarpon Gray boiler fronts. There are some that I am not positive about and many are hard to tell if you have not looked at a lot of ATSF Northerns. There are other places to get clues in the photos are by comparing the color of the stack, super heater cover, and many times the non lagged fireboxes. 3rd Rail painted these on the 2900 class, 3700 class, and the 2-10-2's they did a few years back.

That's the problem, so many factors come into being when determining color, especially when one "wasn't there." Ask any Pennsy modeler about Brunswick Green.

Plus, the color could vary from shop to shop. It seemed like every time CB&Q 4960 of 5632 rolled through town, the smokebox was a different shade of graphite.

So I try to determine what's best using multiple sources of information. And sometimes, I just wing it.

For example, on my model I used a very old bottle of Floquil Graphite for the 2920 model on the left, which is considerably lighter than the color of their current Graphite. The 2922 model is still in factory black, awaiting my airbrush.

Depending on the reference, either could be correct, or either could be wrong. But, at least in a modeling sense, I'll go with what I like as long as it's not too far off the mark.

Rusty

Wow - thank you everyone for all that extra information.

MIKE