BLI's website Delivery Schedule is now listing new, never previously offered by BLI, ATSF paint schemes for RSD-15's, along with a rerun of several more popular paint schemes--and now available with Paragon 2 sound instead of the previous "Blueline" series. According to the Delivery Schedule, the pre-order deadline is July 27, 2012 for November 2012 delivery.
The new paint schemes include the black and silver zebra stripes with large silver "Santa Fe" lettering and the neat yellow and blue warbonnet scheme of the early 1970's. After initial delivery during Spring of 1959 in the black and silver zebra stripe paint scheme with small Santa Fe herald, many of the RSD-15's from the first Santa Fe order received the large silver "Santa Fe" lettering as now offered on the next BLI release. Photos of this paint scheme are relatively scarce, as by 1960 some units were beginning to be repainted into the blue and yellow bookend paint scheme of the 1960 order.
The neat yellow and blue warbonnet paint scheme was applied to 5 RSD-15's during 1972-1973, some of which subsequently wore those colors for service on other railroads as well. The roadnumbers offered by BLI for these units are indeed correct.
For more prototype information, as a starting point, I suggest Diesel Era Volume 22, Number 6, November/December 2011, as it contains a feature article on Santa Fe RSD-15's.
John
The 806 is pictured in the Priest book on page 176 with the large Santa Fe lettering and has the small SF square herald also moved to the side of the nose in front of the cab. Does the BLI have the herald moved to the new position with the large lettering?
CZ
The BLI artwork visible on their website currently does not show a small square SF herald on the side of the nose.
However, other photos I have seen of these units did not seem to have it either.
It was a transitional era between paint schemes, and the black of the steam era was about to be replaced, as well, so there were variations.