For people that think everything should be painted for D&RGW and that the C&TS was formed just to be a history museum operaton, tend to forget from day one of the new C&TS, before the first train moved a wheel, a group of railfans were busy repainting #483 to the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad. The published picture in the Colorado Rail Annual showed Ernie Robart (who handcut the stencil), Bob Richardson (the grandad of Colorado historical preservation and also a good friend of Jerry Day, who also got to ride in a car with him)and others holding up the stencil to repaint a new name over the painted out flying Rio Grande on the tender.
And maybe some people forget that it was Bob Richardson (friend of Jerry Day who once rode in a car with him) who purchased the first piece of narrow gauge rolling stock from the D&RGW in 1950 (caboose 0500)for his Narrow Gauge Museum, that he promptly repainted into bright red and renumbered to 05 for his own Mt. Blanca & Western . And the next year he bought ex-D&RGW #346 2-8-0 from the scrapper of the Montezuma Lbr. Co. and after having a hard time getting the D&RGW to move it to Alamosa, the first thing he did was to reletter it to his own Mt.Blanca & Western. Did any of this repainting make them any less historical and did any railfans not stop to visit this museum because the equipment was not painted in historical colors? Then in 1958 when the engine was moved to the new Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, he first painted it for his new Golden City & San Juan. Did this hurt business and donations? I believe not. Narrow gauge fans can like narrow gauge no matter how it is painted.
I hope some of you can see my point. It's still narrow gauge no matter how it is painted.
