Earl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is there any documentation out there as to what
> the color of the lettering was? Originally,
> lettering was done in gold leaf for passenger
> power. At some point, they went to imitation gold
> leaf (also known as "Yellow Paint". when I hiked
> down to the 170's tender just east of Rock Tunnel,
> the very weathered paint was either white or
> perhaps aluminum leaf. Dave G's print makes me
> think it is something other than simple white
> paint. Cabs and tenders were varnished back then
> too. With either gold or aluminum leaf one has to
> cover it with varnish because the lettering is
> rather fragile.
>
> It has long been said that the B&W films of the
> era didn't "see" yellow or aluminum leaf very
> well, which is why so many pics appear to be
> without any lettering.
>
> What say you?
It's interesting to look at engines and equipment where you absolutely KNOW the colors involved. One example is the famous and often-published photo of D&RG 4-4-0 #99 heading a double-headed passenger train (with 2-8-0 #46) on la veta pass. The original photo is very high-detail and the engine wears its original as-delivered colors (black with line trim in red yellow and white, in its case). It's possible to look at the photo with the Baldwin style book info sitting right next to you and see how the different colors show up. In that specific case (#99 was delivered "black & color," no gold paint or leaf) all the striping shows up exceptionally well against the black base color, down to the intricate geometric patterns on the domes and cylinders and the designs on the driving wheels. The red is probably the hardest to see.
I've read that gold paint, gold leaf, and aluminum paint sometimes did not show up well in certain types of light due to being overly shiny. While not too many D&RG engines had that kind of stuff as-built, it was often applied later on. Certainly by the WW1 era "as built" paintjobs are long since irrelevant!
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2020 12:52PM by James.
