Very recently I finally got around to working on a Westside Models Southern Pacific P1 (4-6-2) I've had for over 22 years. It was very problematic and I took it apart and set it aside. About a year ago I painted the engine gloss black and once again set it aside. I finally put it back together and got it running, at least comparable to a Mantua. Acceptable to me. Now I would like to detail paint it and decal it accurately. The question. The B&W photo I'm following I have doesn't show a silver smokebox front as many SP locomotive, but does show a somewhat lighter tone for the smokebox front and sides...were they painted a graphite gray? And the lettering...larger numerals on the tender and Southern Pacific Lines below the cab window, were they white or silver?
The engine is to be an excusion engine...so I would like to do it up as true as possible.
Mark H
Modeling in HO...Reading and Conrail together in an alternate history.
Ah yes.
Checked the site.
All black with white lettering...sort of figured as much, but just didn't know absolutely.
Thanks Mel
Many SP Pacific's and similarly passenger assigned power in the teens and twenties were not painted black, there were numerous non system paint standards for simulated Russian Blue and sea foam to dark green colors for boiler jackets and cylinder jackets.
Smokebox/firebox colors varied as well, aluminum paint, although not a system standard until 1946, were a hallmark of the Sacramento Shops as early as 1910. There were dozens of graphite formulas, each shop specific tone could range from black to off white when new.
Cab roofs could be black or red and vary within the same class of locomotive, these colors were in the system standard catalog and drift cards for these do survive, color formulas comprised a deep red to the intense interurban red as used by the Pacific Electric, East Bay and Portland interurbans, once again they were shop specific as to application. There is no evidence to suggest Espee ever applied red paint to tender decks.
Being non system standards, no drift cards were prepared to record specific boiler jacket finish formulas, thus it is difficuilt to determine exact combinations and colors, nor is there sufficient written records and of course no color photographs, it was said that when Pacific 2472 was being restored, workers uncovered faint traces of a coke bottle green paint and dull red roof paint.
SP adopted 15 inch lettering in 1946, so would not be correct for your period.
To the best of my knowledge there are no correct decals for lettering SP steam of this period, close, but not 100% accurate. During your period SP was relocating numbers from the tender to the cab and vice-versa, all lettering was silver leaf 9 inch with sythentic grey adopted gradually as the new standard in the twenties, visually one could not tell one from the other.
Dave