Hello everyone,

A few days ago, my girlfriend told me that her grandfather had worked for NS and spent many hours working around the 611 and 1218 during the NS steam program.

One of the things that he had said about the program was really interesting and I wanted to ask you all if this is true. Her grandfather had said that whenever the 611 was in town and it got any kind of dirt on her that NS would not allow for the engine to be cleaned; rather, it was painted over instead. Is this true?

I know this isn't exactly preservation...just throwing this out there. Many thanks.

Martin

Um...that doesn't even make sense. You'd need to clean as part of prep for painting.

Steve

The 611 was supposedly painted with Dupont Imron when it was restored, a VERY expensive product (+$100/gallon at the time), and the paint still looks good, so I'm thinking that story was a big misunderstanding.

Sorry, but I would have a hard time believing that one. The engine was repainted a few times during the excursion era, last time being some fresh black touchup in '94. You can look at pics from '92 and '93 and parts of the jacket looked rough.

Of course, there has NEVER been a documented case of a railroader telling a job-related "tall tale" or "urban legend" in the 180 years of railroad history, so it MUST be true, just like those stories about buried steam locomotives or the railroads being blackmailed into buying diesels by General Motors threatening to withhold auto and auto parts shipments......

</sarcasm>

This is going back on 25 year of memory, but the year the 611 came to Chicago and did the trips on the C&NW, any cars added to the train had to have N&W paint. We put two dome cars on, the 513 and the Silver Lounge. I got the paint codes from Roanoke, and I recall the codes were Imron, and the color name was something like Medium Burgundy Metallic. This was a one-weekend deal, so we painted the window stripes with Dupont Acrylic, but the same color and metallic shade.

Steve

Thank you all for your responses.

I was sure that the info was false as it didn't sound right in my mind as something NS would do, but I just wanted to verify it just to be sure.

Thanks again..


Martin

Imron is a 2-part urethane, where 2 chemicals react to form a third different one. This new chemical is a glossy hard surface that is impervious to its own thinner... it's sure not going to be bothered by a little grease :)

The "B" part is TDI, which is present in the resin until it cures. You need a moon suit to spray it, and Imron is not formulated for brush. You wouldn't apply it in the field.

And $100/gal. is not expensive. Painting again too soon... that's expensive.

Really, sometimes railroad managers do things that don't make a lot of economic sense. I remember during my Amtrak career in DC that the train management people used to freak out during the Graham Claytor era when Mr. Claytor was going to ride the Capitol Ltd., and had the trucks on the coaches freshly spray painted for him. Needless to say, when Mr. Claytor finally found out what was being done for him, he put a stop to the wastefulness.

Then, of course there was the trip early in 611's excursion career when Graham's brother, Bob decided he wanted to see what the old girl could still do between Bellevue, OH, and Ft. Wayne, IN. I believe 83 MPH! was as brave as he was willing to get, and he still had a few notches left on the throttle. The pacing shot is on Hopewell's first 611 tape if you can find it. I think it was after that that Rich decided to start using helicopters for main line chases <G>.

The 611, 1218, 4501, 2716, etc were washed, repeatedly.
Repainting occurred whenever necessary, Imron for the Jacket & tender, a lesser product was used for the machinery and frame.

Robert Yuill

I believe there was a nice picture in Trains magazine years ago, which showed somebody washing the nose of the 611 with what appeared to be a long broom, and I believe the caption said that they were using Tide detergent.

I have no idea why that detail stuck in my brain, but it's there....

We used Tide when washing the Reading T1 on the Freedom Train. Obviously, it's fairly harsh, but it does cut dirt and grease well.

After one trip I was using a scrub brush to clean the road grime off. We'd gone through quite a few tunnels, and steam cleaned the tunnel roof on all of them. So she was pretty much flat black at that point. As I scrubbed, the dark blue paint re-appeared.

Somebody passing by looked up and said "Why are you painting the engine blue?"