You said a mouthful there, Steve, Maybe that's whynobody thinks that they painted them. I remember that I had to scrape a bunch of gunk (Oil and Dirt) off of the wheels to repaint the stripe portion that Roy wanted, but they were there, on every wheel.
As far as my returning to the Loop? Maybe for a ride or two, or if I go crazy when I retire (another 17 years). When I left the Loop in 1978 it was to hire out on the UP. I was with the steam crew for a few years and am now a Locomotive Engineer, happily doing my job back and forth over a little hill called Sherman.
Rick