[august1929]

Coming out shortly, a Western Pacific pack containing 2 each of S1s, S2s and S4s.

Rod

[august1929]

Thanks Galen :lol:

I particularly like the orange and silver scheme (on all of the WP units )






Rod

[Genma Saotome]

Looks nice.

Not so sure about the decisions made WRT the mix of colors... IIRC the Pumpkin II scheme was the shortest lived of the 4 paint schemes shown and by being short-lived would have held up their looks a bit better than these suggest.

[august1929]

Thanks Norman and Dave.

On the pumpkin orange, I don't know how long it was around, or how beat up it got generally, but there are plenty of shots around of Fs that look like they have been through a sand storm :lol:

Here are some of the S units

S4

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?...8524&nseq=0

S2

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?...7911&nseq=0

Here is an S2 in 1971 in not bad condition, just a bit grubby up top and around the steps, hoses etc.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?...881&nseq=47

Rod

[Genma Saotome]

Ingmar, the Western Pacific western terminal was on San Francisco Bay... some switching on the San Francisco side and their terminal yard on the eastern side, in Oakland. The route went south about 35 miles, turned east to pass thru Niles Canyon, continued up and over Altamont Pass and then down to Stockton where their major yard was located. Going north from Stockton, it passed thru Sacramento and went on to Oroville where another yard was located. From here the railroad turned east and ascended the Feather River Canyon, making it's way to Portola. That covers the western Division. From this point it continues thru northern Nevada on it's way to Salt Lake City. There they shared a yard with the Denver & Rio Grande Western.

[Genma Saotome]

Rod, the paint schemes the WP used on their switchers are, roughly, as follows:

• Black w/ aluminum stripes on deliveries before the Korean War. The scheme lasted on some units into the late 50's.
  
• Zepher Silver & Orange started in the Korean war and lasted into the early 70's. I'm pretty sure all switchers got this.
  
• Pumpkin II* was used from around 1963 and lasted into the early 70's. Not all switchers received this scheme.
  
• Perlman Green** was used from ~1971 to the end of the road in 1981.

* It's called Pumpkin II because Pumpkin I was applied in the late 40's to some F units. Not all F units got painted into Pumpkin I before the decision was made to go with Zephyr Silver and Orange.

** There were a couple of versions of green, all fairly similar in tone, that are all called Perlman Green. When new the greens were similar enough to make them hard to distinguish, but as they aged, each version of the green was unique. IIRC the first just faded, I think it was the second that turned almost blue, whereas the third stayed pretty close to as-new in color. To make it really complicated the stripe patterns were a different standard, so you could see pattern "XYZ" applied to different versions of green and so that made for different stripe patterns on the same type of locomotive, the same pattern on different types of locomotives, and different patterns on the same type of green.

They were, as they say, a real hand to mouth financial operation. Heck, after the insurance paid off everybody after one accident, oh, around 1970, they pulled a boxcar out of the river and found it was full of turquoise paint. Guess what color was used on all ROW structures and signals from that moment on? :lol: