From the what it's worth department:
The lettering and scroll work that today appears on Eureka is exactly as it was in 1875. I know this because back in the late 1970s , Ron Steiner at the California State Railroad Museum was involved in restoring the Sonoma.. Ron went to Warner Bros. Studios to do paint research on Eureka, and sanded off the tender and found the original lettering and scroll work. He made full size tracings of all of it and took color photograph slides.
When Ron found out that I acquired Eureka, he asked if I wanted the original design off the locomotive and tender. I was elated that he offered this to me because I had no idea what the size and dimensions of that art work really were. After Ron did his research, Warner Bros sand blasted the tender and painted it black. Ron sent me the pounce patterns for the lettering and numbering and scroll work, along with the color slides he took at the time. So, those patterns that were derived from Eureka now adorn the Sonoma and Glenbrook as well. The paint colors for these items may vary, such as drop shadowing, but I restored Eureka's color to what it was originally.....gray drop shadows. As for the colors of the letters,, numbers and scroll work appearing "yellow" that is because all those are done in gold leaf.
As for other designs on the locomotive, such as the arrow points on the drivers, I was able to locate those under layers of studio paint. Taking a page from Ron's work, I made full size tracings of those, took pictures, and replicated the patterns exactly. As for the lake" brown", red and white striping, I was able to find areas on the locomotive where those colors and designs still existed, and matched those colors also. So that someone in the future may want to research the colors, I left the original colors (lake, fire red and white ) in place on the cab pedestals, and simply painted over those areas. But, some of the original stuff is still there for posterity.
Dan Markoff
