What exactly is wrong with the Antonito shop crew painting the trim on the locomotives however they see fit? Have you ever looked closely at photos of D&RGW locomotives? If you do you will note that the shop crews in Salida had a much different opinion about how to paint locomotives (and cars for that matter) than the Alamosa shops did. Salida tenned to put white trim and green boiler jackets on things if they felt like it. Alamosa seemed to stick to basic black. Just because Alamosa outlasted Salida does not make the somewhat random painting practices of the Salida crews "not historically accurate". Pick some paint job by the Antonito shops that offends you and I bet if you looked long enough you would find that the D&RGW did the exact same thing at some point. After all the D&RGW is the railroad that sent a caboose out for the better part of a decade lettered "Denver & Western Rio Grande" and randomly changed the numbers on cars (look at D&RGW 04999/04988 at the Colorado Railroad Musem some time)
I guess my point is that historical accuracy on paint jobs is a fleeting thinng. Locomotives and cars on Colorado's narrow gauge lines tended to change appearances fairly often. For example, RGS 74 sported several variations in its paint scheme in its short 3 year service life on the RGS, you could paint it to exactly match a photo from May 1950 and some one else, who has a photo of it from December of the same year would refuse to take a picture of it and accuse you of painting it in a way that the railroad never would have done. Besides that paint is just paint and is easily changed. If the Antonito shop crews have enough pride in their work to desire that their locomotives look good, why give them a bunch of crap about it, just because the Rio Grande was content to negelect their equipment does not mean that that lack of care should be carried on in the name of historical accuracy.
Jason Midyette
