Re: 4449 in beautiful black - VERY Classy!!

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Of course, you have just underscored my point that just because a given paint scheme wasn't used prior to 1958 (any standard gauge steam) or 1968 (D&RGW narrow gauge) that it is NOT a crime to apply a non-historic paint scheme so long as it is done in the spirit of reasonable railroad practice.

Ah, but Russ... the difference here is that this was done for a specific special occasion, and not as the regular configuration for the locomotive in question. The standard configuration for 4449 remains the Daylight colors. Now, I personally don't happen to like the Daylight paint, but any argument I'd make that 4449 should normally be black'd be, well, beyond weak.

The C&TS is many things to many people, but among those things, remember that it IS chartered to preserve the history of the line. I have no quarrel with special occasion paint/lettering schemes to represent: what WAS, but only briefly or for a special occasion - what NEVER WAS, but wouldn't it have been interesting IF it had been - what NEVER WAS, HERE, but WAS on another, similar line/branch - or even, very occasionally, the downright goofy to expand interest. This is where things like your beloved green fits in, and doing this sort of thing makes a great deal of sense.

But that's very different from proposing that a paint scheme that can't even be proven to have EVER been used on the locomotives in question (and at best was used minimally) become the default scheme for an historic property. That just makes no sense.

As for the argument that it'd attract more interest - well, we get back to the beauty is in the eye of the beholder thing. For some a given scheme'll look better, for others worse. That's where special occasion paint/lettering comes in, giving a larger group at least a bit of what they like.

Scott