Hi! Thanks for letting me join the forum!
After almost 2 decades modeling the PRR in N scale I've decided to revist my passion for the RGS and am planning an HOn3 layout based on the First District from 1938 to about 1945. I know that's well outside the era for regularly-scheduled passenger or mixed trains on the RGS. That said, I love a Galloping Goose as much as the next guy...but there's something about a steam-powered passenger train that's just--in my humble opinion--more exciting than a Goose. My plan is to muster the occasional mixed train under the excuse that wartime traffic has outstripped the capacity of the Goose fleet.
So, my first post goes right for the jugular--the oft discussed but rarely resolved issue of RGS passenger car color at the end of regular service.
I'm planning on kitbashing a model of center-door combine 259 (much the same way the real RGS did) and am also planning on having coach 260 (and possibly 256) *before* they were converted to work train service. They appeared intact as passenger cars (even if in work train use) as late as '38 in West Durango, and 260 shows up as a coach in Rico in 1939.
So... Mallory Ferrell's Silver San Juan says that in the 30s these cars were green with white lettering. Yet sister combine 257 sitting at Ridgway into the era of color film appears reddish (although the lettering color is impossible for me to make out). I've read elsewhere in books and the internet that the cars were either red or green in the last years of service, and the sources are split 50/50.
So, I come hat-in-hand to this amazing collection of narrow-gauge knowledge. Should I use:
Red with gold lettering?
Green with gold lettering? or...
Green with white lettering?
Many thanks in advance,
Dave
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2017 04:12PM by Dave Vollmer.
