Not to be a Weisenheimer, Sir, but the correct spelling for an NdeM 4-8-4 is "Niagara". You are correct that it is different from the town or waterfall. However, NdeM officials were sufficiently impressed with the NYC 4-8-4 locomotives being erected by ALCO, that they copied the name of the wheel arrangement for their locomotives, but it is spelled with 3 A's in Mexico.

I'm still betting that we haven't seen the last of #1309.

Let me add my voice to slamming the door on that idiot spelling 'Niagra' (as if a locomotive were an erection-enhancement dodge).

But there is a difference in spelling, one that my keyboard skills don't easily support: there is an accent over the first 'a', and the word isn't pronounced 'nye-AGG-ruh'... I'll let Sammy tell how to pronounce it. (Amusingly the Spanish pronunciation is remarkably close to the original Native American pronunciation of the river's name...)

I confess I'd no more object to making the Mexaican Alco look like a junior Potomac than I objected to the D&H 'conversion' of a T-1 that won the giant Dremel as 'model of the month', or a certain 'Clinchfield' Challenger. I agree happily that 'tain't serious preservationism. But neither is operating a famous C&O engine that isn't restored to full C&O context...

I'll skip the phonics lesson, unless somebody really wants to know.

Richard Steinbrenner and I had great plans for #3028. While I wanted to see her done up NdeM, with some cars like the ones that US roads sold to Mexico also done up NdeM, and there are plenty of Hispanics that would have liked to see that, too.... we understood that most steam fans didn't get off on the idea.

Our idea was to letter her for AMERICAN LOCOMOTIVE COMPANY, using a made-up factory demonstrator paint job.

It's a sad fact of life that no matter how you paint a restored steam locomotive, SOMEBODY who didn't do any of the work or pay for any part of the rebuild, will gripe about it. However, once a person faces this, he can quit worrying about whomever has a problem with the paint job, because it never does any good. You satisfy one guy that wants to see something different, and you'll give the next guy something to complain about... it never ends.