One piece of equipment- two paint/lettering schemes

Tom Davidson · **Joined:** Sun Dec 29, 2013 6:07 pm **Posts:** 203

H.O. wrote:

I have suggested to Virginia Museum of Transportation Executive Director Bev Fitzpatrick that if and when the former RF&P E8 is restored, that one side wear the Richmond, Fredricksburg & Potomac - and Norfolk and Western on the other. When N&W sidelined the Class Js and replaced them on passenger trains with leased E8s from RF&P and Atlantic Coast Line they were not repainted, only re-lettered for N&W. Another option would be to use a magnetic strip with N&W to temporarily change the livery.

I recently asked this question in another thread, but got no answer. What is the current status of VMT's RF&P E8A? Is it the only one in existence?

Tom

JeffH · **Joined:** Fri Mar 14, 2014 11:44 pm **Posts:** 239

Overmod wrote:

Likewise, if the object of a museum is to educate or inform the public about history, it would be necessary to have, and restore, and maintain, two separate cars to do the work of one with alternate sides painted differently.

But there are other ways to present that visual information, such as photographs or scale models.

Quote:

This all presumes, of course, that (1) the full details of the historic paint scheme, colors, etc. are adequately and correctly preserved, so that at any time the artifact could (if wanted) be restored to a fully correct historic state; and (2) that any existing historic fabric (e.g. old paint layers, lettering, decals, etc.) is not destroyed (e.g., is properly encapsulated under the finish painting) or is effectively preserved for analysis before any painting-over, especially a weatherproof etching-primer epoxy job, is done.

In theory that is the way all paint jobs should be done. Reality is very few railway museums have
the resources and training to do that kind of documentation. Most of the time, the original paint
is stripped or sanded, perhaps a photo or two is taken, perhaps a paint sample is retained.

Encapsulation is another nice idea but when the existing paint has reached the failure stage or is
separating from the body because of rust scale, encapsulating it just means that the new paint,
the encapsulation layer and all the old paint will fall off in big sheets. Whatever is used to
encapsulate old paint has to be chemically compatbile with both it and the new primer or paint
that is being applied too.

Dougvv · **Joined:** Sat Aug 21, 2004 10:52 pm **Posts:** 914

Hi,

One thing about using two paint schemes, I'd recommend using a small sign describing the history of the car and that the other side of the car represents another time period in the car's history.

Doug vV

fkrock · **Posted:** Sun Oct 09, 2016 1:37 pm

Bay Area Electric Railway Association in its early days had two very strong factions. They could not agree with each other so Sacramento Northern #1005 briefly was painted on one side as a SN car and on the other side as a Key System car #495. It had been operated during World War II as a Key System car coupled with four other former SN cars all painted in Key System colors. The train was called "The City of Berkeley." Before too long the Key System painted side was repainted as a SN car and it was used for excursion trips on SN tracks that still had trolley power.