I was poking around the new photos for this week on Fallen Flags and came across this oddly weathered UP locomotive:
Now my question would be what exactly is going on with this unit? The photo on Fallen Flag is much larger (http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/up/up9179adt.jpg) and one can clearly make out the texture of the paint which appears to be smooth through the color change. The paint does not appear to be peeling, it could be wet but it seems unlikely looking at the rest of the train and the bright blue sky. It looks to me like the unit’s paint has selectively faded!
Also note the weathering on the unit behind it, now there’s an argument to lay the grimy black on quite heavy.
Look at the gray on top of the cab and long hood. Also along the side and on the fuel tank. This is an old Dash 8-40c, so it probably just needs a new paint job.
I’ve seen quite a few pictures lately of ex-SP units looking like this also, so here’s my guess FWIW:
Since Espee never, ever washed a locomotive, maybe UP is using some sort of harsh chemical now to get them clean, and it’s partially stripping the paint where they’ve had to scrub extra hard.
Sometimes an early model digital camera with lower resolution will do that to certain colors. I don’t know if that’s the case, but I’ve seen it happen.
I’d lean towards Grayloess’s suggestion - maybe it’s due to over-harsh cleaning chemicals (maybe a different brand or just too high a concentration). I know when mechanical washers were first introduced over here they had problems similar to this, with the detergents stripping paint from loco bodywork. The appearence of units that had suffered this maltreatment was pretty close to the photo.
It does not appear to be the case in this photo - all the rest of the image does not suffer from pixelization.
I witnessed a new wash unit in early tests in a CP yard in Montreal some years ago. Myself and several friends were on a guided tour and they let us watch as some diesels went through. Something was set too high - either the pressure in the spray nozzels or there was too stong a cleaner used, as the units we saw come out of the booth had paint peeling off them right away. It looked different than this photo, as the primer underneath the CP red was gray and it showed up real brightly.
It is an interersting picture, I would say harsh cleaners and an ultra high presure washer. In any event, I would not choose to model it. I think for the purpose of modeling, it might be best to stick with typical weathering as opposed to non-typical.
Actually I’d bet this weathering pattern, whatever it is (although I think the idea of harsh chemicals is a logical one,) would be fairly easy to model, especially on certain models.
I’d use the good old yellow pencil eraser and fade the paint with light strokes a giving it time. This could give the smooth non-peeling surface and the strange multi-toned paint. Just take care not to take all the paint off with the eraser and steer clear of the decals with the eraser as they would rub away long before the paint does.
I have noticed paint like this on many of UP’s early 3rd generation locomotives, SP’s SD70Ms, SD40M-2s, some of the MK rebuilt GP40-2s, and about half of the speed lettered SD40T-2s. The common link between all of these locomotives is they were all painted in the late 1980s to mid 1990s. Maybe these locomotives were painted with a paint with a new formula that turned out not to weather well. I would guess that GE and the contractor that painted some of the SP locomotives in speed lettering must have used paint from another company. Also, it seems like most of the GP60s did not have this problem.
Of course I have noticed some UP SD40-2s like this. It does not seem like many, so I wonder if these were repainted in the above time period.
GreyLoess, not quite true, Waaayyy back in the late '50’s I used to drive the incoming PA’s off the inbound passenger runs through the wash rack and over to the fuel track at West Oakland. That was a fun job but never ever got past notch 2 to get them rolling, and mostly was 1, idle, 1, idle, 1, idle, till all 3 units were washed. So, the friendly SP did wash SOME locos, but freight, only for a publicity photo shoot!
