Hello everyone, So BLI has announced for preorder the Boston & Maine 2-8-4 T1a & T1b Berskhires, known for their top water feeder that circled the crown of the smokebox. They also are releasing the ATSF and Southern Pacific cersions, which used the orginal four axle tender the B&M ones had originally. The SP ones won't have the waleback style tender for this run, hopefully in a future run it will be tooled, as BLi mentioned in their new flyer newsletter. But which version of SP's version came first? "Southern Pacific Lines" with black smoekbox front, or "Southern Pacific" large lettering, with the front painted in silver paint? Out of all the SP locomotives, why did they paint the front silver? Looking forward to seeing all three versions of this unique steam locomotives come out.
http://modelingthesp.com/Steam_Locomotives/Steam_Lettering.html
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
River Raisin did one of the definitive versions of this locomotive in S gauge half a decade ago, and here is a page that mentions some of the version differences:
https://www.nasg.org/Gallery/reports/SteamLocomotives/ByType/index2-8-4Southern_Pacific_%28SP%29.php
Based on the illustrations on the BLI website, it appears all the engines have the gray/silver smokebox and firebox.
Because those parts of the engine got very hot, railroads found that paint would tend to peel off, so treated those areas with a mix of oil and graphite, which made these parts sort of a silvery-gray. I believe late in the steam era, a paint was developed that could stand the heat, so that was used instead. Not sure, but that later paint may have been more of a bright white/silver than the graphite/oil mix was.
More precisely, and following the painting history mentioned already, it would appear that they started with graphite of a darker silver-gray and then went to the brighter silver probably after 1947. The Coffin FWHs on some were removed during the latter era, with the remaining smokebox front being exposed as bright silver.