What was the body color on the Southern RR’s freight locomotives. To me, it looked more like deep Navy Blue that black. Does any one know for sure?
reland6@netscape.net
Steam or diesel?
Diesels were black.
Starting when the SRR got their first diesels, all diesels were painted in a green and white/gray scheme. It was not until the delivery of the SD-24’s that SRR debuted the famous “Tuxedo” scheme, which by the way is not black and white. The proper name for the stripe color is Duco Aluminum Gray, which can, under bright light will appear almost white, due to its reflective properties. The black was just that, black. Fading and weathering of the paint could make it appear different shades. Lettering as delivered on the SD-24’s was yellow but as more modern locos came on the property, starting in the 1960’s, this was changed to Dulux Gold.
All locomotives were repainted into the Tux scheme and remained that way until the Crescent Limited was revitalized and made a pure SRR train. At this time all of the E-8’s were renumbered into the 6900 class and repainted into the green and white passenger scheme for use on the Crescent. Several FP-7’s were also repainted into this scheme for excutive train use.
Though I model SCL and NH primarily, I admire the Southern also. I like the fact that one of its presidents, Graham Claytor, was a supporter of passenger rail service.
Here’s a helpful web link that gives very good detailed info for Southern Railway equipment, including paint colors.
http://www.hosam.com/srr/srr.html
By the way, regarding the shade of blue you saw. With automotive type paints, solid colors are mixed with various tints. Blue is one of the tints used in various shades of black, still true today. When the factory paint fades, depending upon the color, one can actually notice a primary tint color that was used.
A good example is the “Mint Green” paint scheme used by the Seaboard Airline on many of their locomotives after getting rid of the expensive “Citrus” scheme. When the mint green faded, it actually looked white, which was the primary color used in the formula mix.
O.K, shutting up now…[:p][;)]
Antonio;
I forgot about that site. I met “Sam”, everyone called him Sam, from his initials S.A.Mcall, many years ago in the old Gee-n-Dee RR chat room. Many times, late night, it would be just him and I on the board and we would talk for hours and hours about the SRR, SCL, ACL, L&N.
When he passed I considered it the lost of a true friend.
CJCrescent,
Thanks for sharing this. I wondered what “Sam” stood for. Great website! Wish we would have gotten to know him. The number of modelers that are into railroads of the southeast is growing and he certainly would have been highly valued. He probably knew Warren Calloway, Jim Sixx and the other “gurus” of our hobby.
Take care!