Everyone knows Canadian Pacific Hudson 2816 will be making it’s cross-country North-to-South trek soon and the color photographs are showing up in the fan press. However I’ve gotten to wondering:
Just WHAT color is 2816’s boiler jacketing from the smokebox to the cab? In some shots it looks like sky blue, in others like a metal-flake blue, in others almost silver. Has anyone got any ideas as what the actual color is?
Anyway, it’s one beautiful machine!
It should be gray. That’s all I know. Maybe it’s different cell phone filters?
I don’t know but I would have expected a ‘gun metal blue’ which in dull light would be black.
Thought it was Russia iron or facsimile thereof. But I thought the actual color was gray paint, like the gray used on the old CP diesel scheme.
Proper ‘American’ Russia iron is a kind of gunmetal gray with a greenish tinge, but it does reflect ‘sky color’ to assume a blue tinge under many circumstances. The color has been replicated in paint for at least one class of modern locomotives I wouldn’t have anticipated would get the treatment (DM&IR 2-8-8-4s).
Brunswick Blue.
(I’ll show myself out).
Blue Goose Pink?
2816’s boiler and cylinders appear to be a light gray but in bright light when the sun hits it, it has a shiny gloss to it and so can actually give reflections.
https://railpictures.net/photo/761891/
https://railpictures.net/photo/838066/
Incidentally, on the break in runs it was purportedly run up to 60 mph.
Here are a few vignettes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwVSPC7t5A
This one has canteens like the Big Boy and stepping along:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jqvg4a5TSI
And an 8-minute one:
I rode behind 2816 some years back when it was here in Minnesota, on a trip where it doubleheaded with Milwaukee 261 (no diesels allowed!).
It’s gray, basically same gray as CP’s maroon and gray diesel colors. Because it’s kept shiny, sometimes it will reflect the blue sky. But it’s gray.
Near the end of steam some CPR locomotives did receive the same light gray as was used on the diesels. But they were the exception, and the traditional colour of boiler and cylinder jackets was considerably darker. The exact shade is hard to define and seemed to vary depending on the lighting.
Great answers all! Thanks!
‘76, here is about the “freshest” photo of 2816 out there, comin’ at ya!
The recent “all Canada (more or less)” issue of Railfan and Railroad has some great color pics of the engine, taken in the last year or two.
I find it interesting that the whole eastern half of the original CP is being missed.
Maybe on the way back they can send it all the way to St. John.
But I suspect that neither CSX nor NS wanted to let 2816 on their railroad to get to either Detroit or Buffalo.
Wow! Great shot! Thanks!
Right, I’ve got that issue of R&R, it’s a good one!
Unless there’s been a BIG policy change CSX won’t allow any antique rail equipment on their lines, NS will but more-or-less dead in tow.
So there’s no way 2816 would get a romp on either 'roads mainlines.