I’m working on a bowser T1 kit, and am at the paint stage of things, and am having some issues with siderod colour. The photos that I see are pretty inconclusive, and I’m guessing that that no matter how well taken care of the engine was, the siderods and valve gear would largely take on a grimy or greasy black colour from all the lubricant that was flying around. I’m modelling this engine as in it’s prime (well cared for) but not a museum piece. A well taken care of daily driver, so to speak. And any suggestions about weathering the driveline would be appreciated.
While I can not speak to your particular PA loco on the FEC there were two different paint scemes. The first was on freight or older passenger engines. The side rods and valve mecanisims were the same color as the spokes on the drivers wheels. This helped to hide the grease stains and required less maint. On their main line passenger engines they were gun metal/silver and the same color as the rims of the driving wheels. This showed grease and required more cleaning. It aslo showed when there was not enough grease to stain the paint. As these were high speed/tall drivered engines some grease staining was essential to safe and effective running. Nothing more embarrassing (your last day on the railroad) to the fireman/greaser than a hot driver/side rod bearing. I hope this helps.
My PRR books show the bare metal, not painted for the side rods on the T1’s in all of the publicity photo’s.
The normal black and white photos usually are pictures of the engines running and when they are dirty, it is hard to tell wht the actually color is.
I listed the web site for the PRR T1 by BLI. The overall look is good and you could look at that model to get some idea of the color. The BLI T1 model side rods try to get the look of bare metal, but they are almost too aluminum in color. I have one of these also.
http://www.broadway-limited.com/products/images/t1sample/linkage.jpg
Standard PRR steam locomotive practice was to polish the siderods on locomotives coming out of shops from paint jobs or after running gear maintenance. However, they were not maintained this way once released and acquired a coat of grime, grease and road dirt. The Pennsy wasnn’t noted for washing locomotives after the immediate pre-WWII period, especially freight engines, and they quickly got a deep coat of grime everywhere.
Rods were very seldom painted as it interferred with the inspection processes used to check for cracks.
Roger
Oily black and grimy black should be the best choice of paints.
Hello “Snowyfuzzle,” Color photos of PRR T1s in service show unpainted metal rods with a dark rather than a bright sheen. A dark nickel color would probably be appropriate. If your Bowser engine has bright metal rods, you might try painting them with Neolube for a darker metallic look, and then applying a gloss or satin finish to increase the sheen. Though they did get dirty from road grime, the T1’s side and main rods didn’t collect as much grease as some because they had roller bearings where they rode on the crank pins. The big hubs at the ends of the side and main rods are characteristic of roller bearing-equipped rods. So long, Andy
As you can see the T1s side rods wasn’t to shiny.
http://www.yesteryeardepot.com/PR5518A.JPG
http://www.yesteryeardepot.com/PR5529.JPG
The T1’s were very dirty steamers for sure and the black and white photo’s only show dark looking color. The T1’s rods were not painted, just dirty like most steam engines that are poorly maintained. .
If you weather the engine, the rods will tend to look grimy also like the real T1’s did.
The picture below in the first web page is from an advertisement but does show the rods fairly clear before they got dirty. The second one is also in color in a PRR book and shows the rods clearly.