Hi Martin,
That caboose really does look great but if the photo you used was taken a few years earlier, you would have found it with black handrails. You got the photo taken after the Alamosa shop foreman went crazy with the white paint brush and it was not company standard at that time. You got mad when I objected to the photo on the net with the fellow sitting on the end platform with his feet hanging over the side step. You pulled the photo immediately. Yes, nit picking but someone must have agreed with me.
Now for painting hand rails: There is no reason for any narrow gauge operator today to have any employee get on and off any exterior of any car, except to climb a ladder to apply a staff hand brake. That would be when the car is in idle position. No one is to ride on any moving car for any reason, except inside. The age of “right of passage” is over. If you ever worked on railroad cars, you do not attach to them by sight alone but by feel. You only look carefully for something broken and your color does not help that. When you have a good hold, you proceed up the ladder by feel, and then when level, step to the brake platform. All steps and rungs are in identical locations on the cars and having a white or silver grab-iron will make little aid to their use. The government is only suggesting that the shade of color now be different than the body of the car, therefore black or a different shade of brown will suffice. The black was suggested as I thought the teens were more represent the age of the car. The talk now is to remove all steps and hand iron from most cars like the roof walks and access to them was removed on nearly all cars, years ago.
You missed my whole point about contrast for photographic imaging. Particularly with black and gray steam locomotives, the white tires, running board, draw your eyes to only see those lines against black, and you mind will not see the spokes, springs, frame, rods and the other interesting machinery of the entire locomotive. The white is an extreme contrast to all the black on the rest of the locomotive. It is an optical illusion that I was suggesting to improve the beauty of rebuilt steam locomotive. This problem is to a lesser image problem when it comes to a caboose, so what you are used to seeing is what you will like best. We are just a few years apart as to what era you want the caboose to capture as I thought the teens were more to the age of the car. In this case, a Disney World caboose is better than none at all and that is why I dropped the issue. I didn’t expect to challenge that fine work the way you took it. I’m sure if some of the high paying purest fans whom rent a railroad for back dated imaging, you would be happy to get some crate or temporary paint and back date it for the camera. Thanks for defending your friend's work correctly.
