This is a long and interesting thread. I am going to compare it toward two other types of restorations . Architecture and Automotive . These are different in they tend to be private owned and not corporate. They also sometimes last in original forms with no change in historical material including paint. Industrial or corporate used items never remain the same, they are changed by technology advances, maintenance issues or corporate branding. My bases is 35 years in the airline industry. I have several restored antique automobiles, some to original, some to street rod and live in a restored appearance 1909 house. In the airline industry there appears to be many 737 airplanes and hardly any of them are the same varing from their as built originality by maintence and technology upgrades during their commercial life usage. Landing gear ,engines , interiors are all obsolete and have been changed ,so most parts are just scraped. Automobiles survive from factory built to last raced racecars. Homes survive from original floor plans to many shedshack porchroof add ons. I rank railroad preservation in with airlines, as commercial usage demands a return on money till the items is a 100% worn out. This sounds like a lot of steam engines that have been restored. You have a commercial item that has been modified during usage run till it is worn out repaired with many non original parts, either maintenance upgrades or technology and you are trying to make it go, with some reliability, and represent a time period. So does paint matter ? I did not like the original color of my 1909 house, I did not like the original drum brakes on my antique car ,replaced with disc, and have seen many changes from original airplane delivery to final flight including paint. My take on this is , you have to pick a date and restore to that configurations. Mktjames

Some things get heavily modified, others do not. For example, most cars (hot rods aside) are left pretty much they way they were built. Sure, you put tires and brakes on them, and maybe new shocks and timing belts, spark plugs etc. But the average Joe doesn't swap out engines, change the paint color or modify the interior. So it's common to find a car in pretty much original condition.

Other items get modified and upgraded a lot. As you say, it tends to be more common in industry, where items live a long life and are expected to work to the fullest extent possible. An example most people can relate to is computers. I just retired my 8 year old PC. By the time I did so, pretty much the only original components left were the motherboard, CPU and power supply. Everything else, RAM, graphics card, hard drive, even some of the fans had been replaced or upgraded, sometimes more than once.

So if somebody was to decide they wanted to restore it, they'd have a hard time going back to the original condition, or for that matter, even knowing what was changed when. I know I put at least two graphics cards in it over the years. But when I did that is a mystery aside from "Every few years when the new cards were a lot faster".

While railroads probably kept better records, you'd still run into the same type of issue. Changes and modifications were made over the life of the equipment. I like to tease the folks restoring Reading 2100 that they'd better be careful about "Going back to the locomotive's original condition" or they'll end up with I-10sa class 2-8-0.

Hmmm! Let's see; four T-1 2100 class 4-8-4's existing; no I-10sa class 2-8-0's. Hey....nice idea Bob!


Les

Deleted as Comment not relevant to discussion

Don't look at me, I'm pretty sure pregnancy doesn't work that way :)



Sure, and valuable information like that is the essence of research. But that research is vetted and studied in the normal way. Here's what that isn't: a cock fight at trackside.

Guy prides up to you, and says in way too many words "I know more than you". Ohhhhhkay... that may or may not be true, but you certainly won't be able to vet it on the spot. You'll want a girlfriend or wingman to rescue you from that conversation, and maybe give him a parting "send us an email".

And if that researcher is any good, he's been on the other side of a few of these conversations. Not so likely to thoughtlessly put you there. And the guy ought to be realistic about his facts being vetted.

The problem is, way too many of these conversations are about self-aggrandizement, as if that person is looking for you to give him some sort of affirmation that's missing from his life. That's hopeless, because you are unable. They'll sure tie you up trying, and create a lot of drama. And these are the people least likely to give you actionable intel.

Apropos of Paint Matters, I present to you SZD 0-10-0 No. Er785-63 displayed at the railway station in Umgeny, Moldova.



Several years ago I was fortunate to speak with the gentleman who supervised the painting and display of this locomotive. I asked him how it came to be painted in this way and he replied, "Two reasons. Nobody who has ever seen it will ever forget it. And second, we hoped it would really irritate the Russians."

It never seems to amaze me that paint creates a passionate response but things that are more difficult to undo or even dangerous are accepted. This passion paint causes is like the hostility you can get because wearing the "wrong type" of hat as an engineer but you deliberately create a point for potential crevice corrosion and possible failure in a boiler with a fillet weld and everyone accepts it because others did it in the past without understanding the geopolitical influences to the decisions and the value given to life.

I am convinced the issues facing railroad preservation is not paint but a lack of understanding of the engineering principles and issues that many of our pieces of equipment represent. By understanding the both the technicological understanding of a piece of equipment's life and its role in society we begin to understand not only what skills were needed to build the object but also what changes were done.

I have heard complaints about the paint on EP&SW#1 in spite of the hard work to determine its true color. yet if we replaced the boiler and updated the air brakes to 26 because the parts are easy to get just how many people would complain? The influences of photography and railfans is amazing. On the Rio Grande lettering seems paramount but when I see photos from the photo freights with the loaded pipe gonds headed EB and no one comments it. That says a lot about why railroad preservation needs to educate both fans and nonfans alike and why we struggle with acceptance in the rest of the preservation world.

Robby Peartree

Although this discussion is not primarily about paint, something to keep in mind is that with the exception of a few pigments such as carbon black, almost none of the paint pigments available today are the same as those used 40 or more years ago. Most use organic pigments in place of the original heavy metal pigments such as lead sulfide used on the past. Some are a very accurate match under daylight but can look very different under artificial light. Some also fade with time to very different colors than they did in the past. Most old paint formulas are worthless today because the pigments required are unobtainable.

Occasionally some one is able to do a restoration using very old paint that was stored in the back of a railroad shop building. But this can be a problem because many of the old pigments were poisonous. Brushes and rags used in the job must be disposed as hazmat material today. Any sanding of the old paint frequently creates hazmat problems. If the paint is sprayed, very expensive sophisticated air filters will be required.

So do the best job you can with modern paint and hope your paint job will last.

folks,
I did not know the details of the Western Maryland steam locomotive in this discussion.

The point that I want to make is that people should recognize that a for profit tourist railroad is not a museum. Some of them lean that way and others do not.

I do not have the same expectations at a tourist railroad as I do a railroad museum. I have been to a lot of both kinds. I think it is a good thing when a tourist railroad, with its branding needs does things a museum does; or wishes it could do if it had the money.

You may know that the Valley Railroad has a recent Chinese built locomotive that looks like a long gone New Haven locomotive. There are no real New Haven locomotives; so I thank them for what they have done and look forward to riding that locomotive the next time I am in Essex, Connecticut.
ted66