Wow! My poor thread is now a double Zombie having risen twice! [angel].
In the event, I ended up taking a Presier Hot Dog vendor (with jacket & tie!), carved away anything that looked un-coverall like, added some styrene putty to fill out gaps and folds, scribed a few lines (coveralls have a few visible seams) to mimic some coverall pictures I found on the web (some uniform clothing stores), painted the resulting coverall a medium blue & the boots light brown, added a tiny rectangle of white decal film on the left side ‘pocket’ for the name tag, and glued him to a Walthers garage creeper - since his hand was originally holding a hot dog for sale, cutting that off, drilling a hole and adding some bent thin wire as a ‘wrench’ was a natural - however, his big meaty hands bent at somewhat odd anglew means the bulk of his top half will be somewhat hidden under a car on jack stands, while his legs and the rest of the creeper stick out.
Hmm, that’s a wordy way to say I carved, filled, scribed, and painted his clothes to look like coveralls and workboots.
Now, if I can only find an easy way to convincingly covert some of the 1980s style ‘button down shirt & tie’ male office workers (presier includes some triplicate/quadruplicate copies of the same figures in it’s unpainted sets) into flannel, denim & workbooted railroad engineers…
When I was on the footplate, I’d wear overalls when preparing the engine or putting it to bed, and bib & brace when out on the road. The overalls helped protect you and keep you clean, the bib & brace looked a bit more “dressed-up” when working in view of the punters.
In europe they wear only coveralls and they must be blue, every country we visited anyone who needed them were dressed in blue coveralls, never did see a pair of overalls, and in a C.P.R. town growing up all train crews wore grey, striped bib overalls and an engineers cap and they were all bought in the U.S. (we were at the end of the Soo line) this is rather an exiting forum eh?
As one who has worn all of the suggested apparel at work, I would have to give a noncommital answer.
In nasty, filthy environments, I would wear coveralls; ie. the saw mill as a mechanic. We would work the boiler or bark hog in these, then get out of them as soon as possible.
In the car mill, I work in a denim shirt and Carhart jeans. They are comfortable in the Carolina summer.
When climbing in the missiles on a Trident submarine, we wore coveralls. It was a requirement.
When I have my choice, I choose as to how much overhead work I am looking at. If I am working with my hands in the overhead position, having my shoulders and crotch not being connected by my clothing is a good thing. It’s important!
When I worked on the line in an assembly plant, I was in jeans (only wear Levis because they do last a long time) and a longsleeve shirt. Other guys were in mechanics pants and bibs, with a few of the old timers wearing the old striped cords.
Railroaders, run the spectrum. My uncle (Conrail and CSX) was a 100% overalls guy, in winter big padded ones with a hoodie and big jacket (it’s Buffalo after all) and in summer just basic lightweight ones and a polo shirt.
My grandfather was a foreman at Alco and was a bibs and button up shirt man. Funny thing is my cousin whom is a foreman at Harley Davidson, wears a polo and kakis. Different times and different jobs I guess.
Most of the railroaders I’ve seen around here have either work pants, coveralls or cargo pants. The last time I saw the old style striped bibs was on CNW guys back in the 90s, they had the railroaders hats with a company patch too. Conrail used to have those too but it was more common to see the company shirt or jacket. CP guys only seem to wear company logos when required, same with UP.
Craziest uniform I’ve seen in railroading was actually a CP cop, protecting a shipment. First off the guy had to be at least 6’6" and was decked out in what looked like riot gear minus the helmet, had a pretty big gun too. Very nice guy though, the CP was shipping some kind of hazardous matterial through Milwaukee and he was at the train station making sure nobody there tried to do anything to it, all seemed pretty routine and he wasn’t very stressed. We had a good conversation about railfanning and how things used to be when the Milwaukee Road was the hometown line.