I’m the process of painting some PRR GP7s in the Keystone only scheme. The pictures I’ve come up with so far don’t really show the short hood.
Where on the short hood were the Keystones positioned?
Thanks,
Nick
No keystones on them anywhere. Some GP9’s got them centered on the flat spot on the end of each hood fairly high up but the GP7’s never had them. You should probably use the Buff colored decals as the switch from gold had been made by that time. GP7’s had a number on the cab and the word PENNSYLVANIA spelled out on the side of the long hood. That was it except for the various warning decals about voltage and fire extinguisher. By the way everything from the walkway down should be black and the hoods should be Dark green locomotive eamel with yellow handrails. Any remaining before the PC merger got much bigger numbers and MAY have had keystones only but I do not have any pictures that way. the PRR wasn’t into doing much in the way of repainting before the merger with the financial condition it was in. Use caution unless you have a specific engine picture. Even on the Standard Railroad of the world there were oddballs everywhere.
Did some further research and the only lpicture I can find is of a GP9. IT has keystones with the top about equal with the top of the cab window and centered on the short hood. The long hood has one centered under the radiator air inlets and about 1’ below the inlets. use the yellow number set for premerger numbering.
Thanks,
I’m painting them in the pre-merger keystone only scheme. I have plenty of pictures of the long hoods, but couldn’t find any that showed the short hoods clearly. I didn’t think there were keystones on the short hoods, but wanted to be sure.
The GP9 photos I found showed the keystones were randomly applied to the short hoods, some had all three, some had one on the end, some had none.
I may chalk it up to modeler’s licence and use all six keystones anyway.
Nick
The only GP7 short hood logo I could find is Penn Central #5876…
http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~duplerd/pa/pc5876b.jpg
Here is Penn Central #5876 GP7 logo on the long hood…
http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~duplerd/pa/pc5876a.jpg
So, at least for Penn Central, the logo was positioned just below the double headlights in the same location, regardless of GP7 short hood or GP7 long hood.
Here’s a GP9 without end logos in 1971: http://rr-fallenflags.org/prr/prr7038g.jpg
…and an RSD12 without them too in 1967: http://rr-fallenflags.org/prr/prr6879s.jpg
Ok…here’s a '7 without them: http://rr-fallenflags.org/prr/prr5888.jpg
and another one: http://rr-fallenflags.org/prr/prr5865.jpg
But, I did find a GP9B with them: http://rr-fallenflags.org/prr/prr3816.jpg
PC did some strange things with their older power–some former PRR and NYC engines kept their old colors until they were retired. I’ve seen red E units with only keystones, some with worms; grey NYC Es–again, some with worms, some still NYC, etc. Most PC power was repainted, and given the “standard” scheme. But, even then there were always variations…too many to list here!
Agreed but that wasn’t the question. The question was what did the PRR do right before the merger.
Sorry about that. I’m more of a PC guy than a PRR one.
According to this: http://kc.pennsyrr.com/model/mr_exc_dieselcolor.html, “The final paint scheme for Pennsylvania RR disels was “Dark Green Locomotive Color” (a dark green that looks black, at least to me) with red keystones on the nose and just behind the cab on both sides. The frame and everything below was painted black. Lettering was a pale yellow/gold color officially called “Buff”.” Here’s an example: http://rr-fallenflags.org/prr/prr5880.jpg.
That is correct for late models like GP30, Sd40, SD45, C628, C630, U25b, U25c, U30c. The question is that from about the time the PRR purchased their vast fleet of GP9s and 7’s (over 250 GP9s alone) was any repainting done? Since they were losing money from about the time of the purchase the chances are it was minimal. I base this on the deffered maintenance that eventually crippled the railroad. I doubt funds were being set aside to do anything but keep engines moving. The exception is the renumbering prior to the merger. That is why I said it is imperative if modeling a specific unit to find photos of it and use them as the basis. Exceptions on the PRR are numerous and comical at times. Some probably were repainted but very few in my opinion.
Thanks for your help guys.
Here’s my progress so far:
I’ve got the decaling done, except the number boards. I still need to Dullcoat the body, and paint the handrail and step safety stripes. I wasn’t able to find a clear picture of the short hood, so I guessed. I applied one keystone to the end of the short hood, but left them off the sides.
Nick
Very passable and probable for a premerger GP except for the lack of grime and dirt. I hate to do that to a freshly painted unit. I usually do it a couple of years later.
Thank you for all you input. I finished my late PRR GP7.
Nick
Looks great Nick!