Since my B&O Power Book is all in black and white, and color pictures seem as scarce as hens teeth, I need to find an expert , hopefully here on the forum.
I’ve got a Mantua Pacific that I have detailed and modified to as close to a P7e as I can get, and before it gets stripped, painted and a Tsunami, I would like to find out what color they truly are.
I know its not the light blue that Mantua painted them. Is it a dark blue (like the Chessie Steam Special) or is it truly black ? Any good pics online out there??
This was tossed back and forth a few times on the B&O yahoo group. The concesus was “black”. Many people swear that they were painted a dark blue. This was discounted by all the “gurus”, The black paint often would look like a midnight blue, call it reflection (sky) weathering or a vivid imagination, who knows.
Bob K.
I believe a few were what I would call a field Green.
Early P7s were Olive green, but by the time they came up to the c,d,and e models they were all much darker.
After doing a whole lot of googling, I did find one site that looks promising http://www.ironhorse129.com/Friends/DavyCormack/BO_Presidents.htm
but it still looks blue to me in SOME of the pics, black in others.[%-)]
Maybe some of the class were blue and some black??? Maybe depending on the class of passenger train they had as a regular assignment??
I dunno! [banghead]
How about an eyeball witness. When living on the South Side of Cicago (I left in 1950) I saw a steam powered B&O train crossing Halstead street and the engine was a very dark blue. Most likely the same shade used on diesels and psgr cars. At that time, the B&O psgr cars were also blue w/ a yellow (Dulux gold?) stripr below the belt rail. Unfortunately for this discussion the engine was a 4-8-2 rather than a Pacifific, but the likelyhood is that all psgr engines, at least at this point in time, were dark blue.
The P-7s were painted Royal Blue,or Bando Blue as B&O called it,although in photos and movies it appears much darker.I tried Royal Blue on my Mantua P-7 and it looked too toy like,so I tried Testors Transparent Blue over black,and this was what I was looking for.The Yahoo discussion was about the T-3s,some swore there were a couple of blue ones.All the other P series Pacifics were black.
I assume that Testors Transparant Blue is kind of like a candy color, semi translucent? Sounds interesting, think I’ll try to slip over to the local hobby shop for a looksee! Thanks!