Throwing another (Moffat Green) log on the fire . . .

Please don't succumb to the temptation to shoot the messenger . . .

The photo below appears on page 27 of Otto Perry's Railroad Pilgrimage (Sundance Publications, 1981), written by Dell A. McCoy, who was a close friend of Otto Perry and spent a great deal of time with him going over Otto's vast collection of railroad photographs. The photo below is accompanied in the book by the following caption, written by Otto's close friend who had undoubtedly discussed the photo with him during preparation of the book (emphasis mine):

"The Burnham shops in Denver transformed 10 2-8-0 standard-gauge locomotives to 2-8-2 narrow-gauge freight haulers. Resplendent in green boiler jacket, graphite gray smoke box, aluminum leaf lettering and black trim, the 497, "brand new" in 1930, sat in Alamosa on a standard-gauge flat car."


Is the above caption based merely on the obviously lighter color of the jacket as compared to the domes and cab, is it based on information passed directly to Mr. McCoy by his acquaintance Otto Perry, or is it taken from Otto Perry's caption on the back of his postcard which was copied for use in the book? *

(Added 09/16/11): Fritz Klinke kindly provided Mr. McCoy's address, and I wrote to Del a month or so ago regarding the above caption but have not yet heard back from him.

(Added 08/08/09): Note also the difference in the colors of the smokebox and jacket above the running boards - where the angle of the sun is exactly the same. According to the caption, the smokebox [and stack] are "graphite gray" (the stack is clearly lighter than the nearby sand dome). THE JACKET APPEARS SLIGHTLY LIGHTER THAN THE GRAY SMOKEBOX UNDER IDENTICAL LIGHTING CONDITIONS and, IMHO, could not possibly be shiny brand-new gloss black. The jacket is clearly not lighter due to soot - the engine doesn't even have her wheels yet ...

(Added 08/09/09): Also note that the small areas of the sides of the tops of the shiny black domes that are getting sun at approximately the same angle as the jacket are MUCH darker than the jacket.

(Added 08/11/09): As noted previously (below), Otto Perry used a readily available film - I presume it was from Kodak - that allowed direct contact printing onto postcard-sized paper. It should be pretty easy to determine the characteristics of this film, and what shades of gray would have been produced by various colors.
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But we're not talking about colors here! ... IF the skeptics are right, and the jackets of the K-37's were shiny black when delivered from Burnham, then we're not talking about how this film rendered different colors, we're only talking about the difference between the shiny black heat-resistant jacket enamel and the shiny black ordinary enamel used on the cab and domes, etc.
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Is the difference between shiny black jacket enamel and shiny black cab/dome enamel enough to account for the difference in shades in the above photo? And if the jacket isn't black, what color is it?? ORANGE???

- Roosso de los Locos Verdes


* Most, if not all, of Otto Perry's photos were taken using film which allowed direct contact printing onto postcard-sized paper - no enlarger needed. If he distributed most of his prints as postcards, did these have captions on the reverse as is customarily done with commercial postcards? His negatives reside in the Denver Public Library; where are the postcards in the David S. Digerness collection currently housed?

p.s. Did Otto Perry keep a record of his photos? Did this record include details about his subjects - such as "new K-37 class engine; note green jacket."?

pps. If, in fact, the jacket of #497 really was painted green when she was placed in service in 1930, is this also true of her nine siblings??
(Added 08/27/13) - Ah-yup!!  - See pages 6 and 7 of the Fall 2013 edition of the CRRM's Iron Horse News . . .   
(Added 11/11/15) . . . and [ngdiscussion.net]!



Edited 20 time(s). Last edit at 12/25/2019 11:25AM by Russo Loco.