Real locomotives may not even have the correct paint… Several B&O locomotives was painted in C&O’s “Enchantment Blue” and the only thing the shop did was replace the C with a B-these are the units that C&O sent to the B&O to shore up B&O’s aging diesel fleet… These ex C&O units retain their C&O numbers and the bell mounted on the short hood… They also had the Capital Dome on the short hood.
This happen shortly aftet C&O took control of the B&O through buying stock… These units just had C&O on their long hood instead of “Chesapeake & Ohio” spilled out.
Shop workers did make mistakes in painting equipment or use any (say) dark blue paint in a spray can to cover minor repairs or a weld spots. I seen a PRR boxcar spilled Pennsylvannia… It had one “n” to many.
Trains Magazine would occasionally feature a page of “goofs” showing, say two identical car numbers or mixed up stencil jobs. Of course, there were dozens of “Patch-Outs” that might be considered goofs as well.
In the hoped-for SP-SF merger there were locomotives painted with space for the anticipated post-merger lettering, that never happened.
Lots of photographs of 1950s railroad equipment show “dimensioanl data” that was applied very sloppily.
We expect our models to be crisp and legible under high magnification, but in the 1950s at least, a lot of it was blurry with rough edges, and obviously done in a hurry.
Sorry, I do not have a collection of prototype photographs to share.
If you look closely at prototype equipment you will find lots of runs and ripples. They are not very obvious though since they are so small compared to the size of the equipment. If the flaws on a model were true to scale they would be invisible.
The paint from the prototype manufacturing plant, or from the in-house shop on important equipment (think UP4141 or the 4014 Big Boy) are going to be close to perfection. Patch jobs, in-house repaints, and paint jobs done under less than ideal conditions (shortlines, museum or tourist operators, etc.) might be less perfect. In translating that to your layout, you cannot hold the model under a microscope. Look at the bigger picture. Do the flaws leap out at you from a passing train? If not, then do not worry about it. It’s your hobby, not your profession.
Slightly off-topic, but even prototype lettering wasn’t always perfect, either. Some of us old-timers remember photos in MR’s “RPO” showing cars lettered “PENNSYLVALVA” and “SOUTHEUT!” And I’ve seen sloppy lettering like that “PC” and sometimes letters and number out of alignment, too. I think there may have been less of this back in the early days, when everything was produced by craftsmen who were proud of their work and took pains to make it right. I’ve seen photos of freight cars where all the square-headed lag screws and bolts were lined up as though a straight edge was laid across them.
One that happened with switchers and road switchers was that the shop crew would swap out a damaged access door on the long hood with one from another engine (like one that was being cannabalised for parts) so the railroad name would be jumbled or part missing. PEN NSY LVA NIA might come out PEN NSY NIA or PEN LVA LVA NIA.
I took a photo of a covered hopper where the entire side had a sort of “alligator skin” look. I suspect it was a paint shop goof of some sort, but I suspect not factory paint but a car shop repaint.
Back about the mid 1970s the Rock Island had a rebuild program that encompassed most of the GP7 and GP9 fleet. One of the engines was released from the paint shop in the blue and white scheme. Except that the white used on that unit wasn’t the correct shade but more of a cream or off white color. The RI, rolling in money like it was, had the unit repainted with the correct white.
Speaking of wasting scarce money, some of the first units rebuilt were painted in the then current bright red and yellow Rock island scheme. Those units were repainted in the blue and white scheme after that became the new standard.
In the post-PRR/NYC merger era I witnessed many EMD E and F units with their side panels swapped out and the front doors were sometimes switched around, too. You could see shades of gray, tuscan and black, sometimes plain painted plywood and any combination of lettering, even upside-down on occasion.
Especially on earlier E7 and F3 engines that the shops knew were headed for scrap or trade in soon.
In another thread I mentioned the CNW buying ex-KCS E units and spray painting them, and you could still see all the KCS striping and lettering.
Some years ago the Soo Line HTS magazine showed a nose shot of a freshly painted SD40-2. The sides of the red nose were neatly masked, but you could see that the white walkway was not masked, and there was considerable overspray from the bottom of the short hood on the front walkway.
I think it was Jason Shron that mentioned one VIA rail FP unit that was painted incorrectly. Can’t remember if Rapido produced it or not. No time to look just now.
