why are wethered egines grey

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gregc

gregc

Apprentice Modeler
why are weathered engines grey ?

it seems that most weathered ho steam locomotive are more grey than black. i know i haven't seen that many steam locomotives first hand, but they all seemed to be black, even if they're not polished or cleaned.

in the picture below, 1187 has probably be neglected for quite a while, but i would still say it is black. but even if an engine was working daily and exposed to all the dust and whatnot on the tracks, i don't understand where the greyness comes from. is the paint faded? coal dust is black, dirt is brown, ??

also, why are some (mantua) model roofs red?
 
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Much of the water used to make steam contains high amounts of lime and other elements. This would explain the light "grey" color. Other elements found in water would be sulphur, iron, and such.

Bob
 
In addition to Bob's answer, steam locomotives used massive amounts of sand to maintain traction. Sanding lines from the sand domes often leaked and the sand was thrown back up on the locomotive since the wheels were often spinning when the sand was applied. Do that over a period of time and a light grey grit built up.
 


The above answers are correct as applied to a prototype. I'm assuming you talking mostly about a model.

Part of it also is "cosmetic". In a not so well lit room, as many model layout rooms are, the grey appears black, but still shows the locos details. On a purely black loco that is weathered some, all the detail has a tendency to disappear, and many want to still see the detail.

Steam locomotives sometimes had a red oxide roof. It was just dependent on the practice of the railroad. It wasn't specially painted, in fact it was red because it wasn't painted at all. That's the color of the primer the loco was first painted with.
 
Hey, Carey.

I've occasionally wondered about those red cab roofs. What could it have cost them; another quart of paint and 5 minutes of a person's time?

Any idea on why cab interiors were often puke green?

Thanks. Bret
 
I'd think it was a middle color to allow seeing the inside cab with low light at night and at the same time not be too bright for daytime.
 
JazzDad said:
Hey, Carey.

I've occasionally wondered about those red cab roofs. What could it have cost them; another quart of paint and 5 minutes of a person's time?

Any idea on why cab interiors were often puke green?

Thanks. Bret
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If they wanted to, yes they could have spent the extra $5. :D

Some RR's actually did paint them on some locos. CB&Q painted their's mineral brown. SRR "officially" painted their roofs black or green, however back when locos were assigned to a permanent crew, I know of at least 5 locos that had the roofs painted oxide red, and I have the original painting order for my Dad's loco he fired on, and it said paint the roof red!
 
i found a color picture of a steam locomotive from 1951. (i'm not sure if the colors are not a little washed out). but the engine isn't a freshly painted black, but neither is it gray. can anyone help me out with the color and weathering to reproduce this?

also, is the boxcar after the tender wooded? who makes a model like this?
 
Here are a couple of pictures of UP 844 on an excursion in Oklahoma back in 2007.

UP844-18.JPG


UP844-17.JPG


Union Pacific shines up 844 prior to these runs so the front 2/3's of the locomotive is shiny black while the area over the fire box and cab is turning light grey from about 2 weeks use.
 


There are a number of considerations that figure into answering the OP's question. By no means are those below all inclusive.

Re prototype locos looking "grey", consider that in many cases the original photographer was looking for the unusual, not the commonplace. Well maintained engines don't have nearly the "character" shown by dirty, aging, heavily weathered examples. Likewise, such weathered locos photographed much better than those whose paint was either fairly new or had simply faded to a deep, sooty, flat black.

Further, nearly all color photos of steam engines come from the end of the age of steam and color film, particular color slide film, was not common much prior to WWII. Simultaneously, railroads were letting the appearance of their steam engines go in those last years (even the last decade) of steam, resulting in some awfully wornout-looking, rusted and weathered engines. At the height of the steam era most locos were very well maintained and I have even seen pictures of certain engines from this period where the normally assigned crew had removed the paint from certain appurtenances and pollished the underlying brass of the domes and fittings!

Certainly, there were/are steam locos that show considerable evidence of hard water staining but this was much more common on the western shortline than on class one railroads from either coast. Also, consider that pre mid 20th century paint was not long lasting and locomotive were shopped and likewise repainted fairly often. As their end approached, repaints were eliminated, allowing for a much greater degree of paint failure than was common previously.

Concerning models, the situation with regards to photographing them applies as well. Locomotives with character are much more likely to have their photo published than out-of-the-box models. As well, details of light colored engines photograph much better than those on solidly black locomotives. Then too, most hobbyist are best familiar with the photos from the end of steam (see above), so they take that appearance to always have been the norm.

There is, as well, a troublesome tendency among some hobbyists to horribly over-weather everything and there are probably are more layouts that have a "caricature", rather than realistic, appearance.

NYW&B
 
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I think that all the answers given so far are correct, but the one you are looking for is that the reason most engines are painted grey is the 100 foot rule. A black loco seen at 100' will appear to be a dark grey rather than black. This is caused by haze, lensing, and polution. So, to reproduce the 100' foot effect at 3' model engines are typically painted grey. It's the same basic principle in layering landscape on a backdrop. The furthur something is from the viewer, the more washed out. This implies distance just as the grey does on a model.
 
NYW&B said:
There are a number of considerations that figure into answering the OP's question. By no means are those below all inclusive.

Re prototype locos looking "grey", consider that in many cases the original photographer was looking for the unusual, not the commonplace. Well maintained engines don't have nearly the "character" shown by dirty, aging, heavily weathered examples. Likewise, such weathered locos photographed much better than those whose paint was either fairly new or had simply faded to a deep, sooty, flat black.

Further, nearly all color photos of steam engines come from the end of the age of steam and color film, particular color slide film, was not common much prior to WWII. Simultaneously, railroads were letting the appearance of their steam engines go in those last years (even the last decade) of steam, resulting in some awfully wornout-looking, rusted and weathered engines. At the height of the steam era most locos were very well maintained and I have even seen pictures of certain engines from this period where the normally assigned crew had removed the paint from certain appruences and pollished the underlying brass of the domes and fittings!

Certainly, there were/are steam locos that show considerable evidence of hard water staining but this was much more common on the western shortline than on class one railroads from either coast. Also, consider that pre mid 20th century paint was not long lasting and locomotive were shopped and likewise repainted fairly often. As their end approached, repaints were eliminated, allowing for a much greater degree of paint failure than was common previously.

Concerning models, the situation with regards to photographing them applies as well. Locomotives with character are much more likely to have their photo published than out-of-the-box models. As well, details of light colored engines photograph much better than those on solidly black locomotives. Then too, most hobbyist are best familiar with the photos from the end of steam (see above), so they take that appearance to always have been the norm.

There is, as well, a troublesome tendency among some hobbyists to horribly over-weather everything and there are probably are more layouts that have a "caricature", rather than realistic, appearance.

NYW&B
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What you are describing pretty much describes a romantic approach to certain aspects of rail photography. Play up the unusual---play down the mundane. As for the modelling ---same thing---i've got one very heavily weathered E7--that I got that had warped trucks--made into a fire victim---
 
NYW&B said:
...At the height of the steam era most locos were very well maintained and I have even seen pictures of certain engines from this period where the normally assigned crew had removed the paint from certain appurtenances and pollished the underlying brass of the domes and fittings!


NYW&B
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This is definitely true! My Dad was a fireman for the SRR, back in the mid 1930's. He told me of how every morning he had to be at the roundhouse at 5:00 AM to polish the loco. If the engineer saw one little speck on it, it was repolished!:D One time the old shop goat was pulling out a loco to be started up after rebuilding, and it let off a big blast of smoke and steam as it was pulling out this loco. The blast of steam knocked down a ton of soot from the rafter area, covering every loco in the area and Dad said, after the fight, the yard crew repolished the loco this time!:p:D
 
Yet another reason for the gray look on some roads came from the fact that it was hard to keep paint on a blistering hot boiler, so some roads, like the Western Maryland, employed shop personel to wipe down the engines with cotton waste and graphite. This gave the boiler a gray look, while the other parts of the engine remained black.
1407onbobsbridge.jpg

Oh, and the cab roof and the tender water deck are oxide red :)
So I applied the same logic to a PFM Potomac, added a little gray and brown "splash" weathering, and a few lime deposits and you get what you see here!
 


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