Steven posted:
I am certain that the intent by CHS is to end up with a historically acurate repesentaton of the No.9....which may take a little time....
I think it would be very *shrewd* if you guys ran her with the shiny brass rings and inaccurate lettering for at least the first month or two. The shiny brass, while historically inaccurate, will make her look prettier in all the media coverage of her first run. The D&SNG's giftshops sell lots and lots of postcards and other artwork of the Eureka simply because all her brass and other detail make her look prettier (at least to the non-raifan customers) than their K28s and K36s. In short, the prettier #9 looks during her first runs the more free media coverage you are likely to get.
Then, a month or two later, *after* all the "first run of #9" photos get into "Trains", "Railfan" and the other magazines, you can think about correcting the tender lettering. When you guys get the stencil up on the tender, be sure to take plenty of pictures....send some of those pictures to Railfan, some different pictures to Trains, and some different pictures to the remaining magazines. I'm sure at least some of those magazines will run at least one photo (More *free* publicity) along with a caption explaining the corrections. For an example of this, see the current issue of Railfan - it has a picture and short explanation of why Strasburg painted their 2-10-0 back into the Great Western's scheme.
Then, late in the season, you can cover up the brass with the black paint... submit more photos to the magazines and you could get even more free publicity. Heck, if you're going to do a photo freight again at the end of the season, you could wait until then to paint the brass black. I say let the complainers on here put their money where their mouths are... if they want to see 100% historical accuracy, let them pay for it themselves. (Assuming they survive their coronaries they'll have after they read this post.)
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Chris Webster
[www.speakeasy.org]