After the recent thread on gold lining, i purchased the sign writers gold paint and so far its holding up well and looking pretty good. I am drawing and producing masks now for all the fancy scrollwork everywhere, 6 on each end and 4 on each side in 2 different sizes.

Was the color of car 57 brown when it had the factory Pullman trimming or scroll work? In some orthochromatic photographs of some Union Pacific, Denver & Gulf passenger cars from the mid 1890's the letterboard appears to be a "darker" shade than the rest of the side. Did you find any evidence of that on car 57? What a beautiful restoration; keep up the great work... I can't wait till she gets trucks and brakes.

Hi Jeff
All we have found so far is Pullman green everywhere, we do have a photo of 57 in 1892 but its too poor a quality to tell any colour differences. I know that some C&S cars appear to have a black / dark background to the letterboard which ends either side of the lettering, the cafe cars definately appeared to be that way from new. Sadly we have so little paint on the letterboards that we wouldnt know.
Thanks for the compliments .

Mike Pannell