That herald is just gilding the lily.

And it looks beautiful.

I'm excited for the WW!

No, heralds were indeed used by the B&O even on SW1's originally--though whether cast or flat seemed to be open to whim.

Of course, if they want to PROPERLY backdate this, they'd have to restore the number as 208......
(Photo shows sister 204 in Baltimore in the early 1950s, Md. Rail Heritage Library collection)

The heralds started showing up when steam was being retired. By the late 1950's the diesels had 4-digit numbers and Capital Domes.

Question, was the bar at the bottom of the front and rear hand stanchions removed to facilitate the added uncoupling lever or due to it being another hazard of sorts?

Noticed some SW-1s still have them, others do not.

The 08 looks awesome!

That bottom end horizontal handrail was designed to have something to hold onto when riding the footboards. It became superfluous when footboards went away by FRA edict in the mid-70s, same time those extended cut levers came in (which would interfere with the old horizontal handrail).

Howard P.