Steam & Excursion > It Is All In The Details - Baldwin's Factory Paint Stripping!

While many fine restorations of Baldwin steam locomotives have been accomplished over the years, the engines rarely receive and accurate Baldwin factory paint job with correct stripping when the restoration is over.  Many times the engine is lettered for the tourist line that runs her and there is no attempt to replicate the Baldwin factory striping.  Other times the operators make some attempt at the factory stripping but still fail to properly apply at the correct lines.

Here are 3 examples of the Baldwin factory paint stripping applied to logging tank and tender engines in the 1920's.  You can see the care and attention to detail that Baldwin and their painters went to in lettering and stripping these new engines for their owners.

On the engine itself, the domes, cab windows, cab panels, cylinders and drivers all receive the strip treatment.  Note the difference between the striping on the cylinders with slide valves vs the ones with piston valves.

The tenders received their own paint striping that followed the standard patterns shown here.  Not only was the main cistern side panel striped, but also the tender flare or edge above the cistern got it's own stripe panel.  The variety of the panel stripes depended on the design of the tender as we see in the last 2 photos.

Currently, the only restoration of a Baldwin 2-8-2 that appears to have precisely duplicated the Baldwin factory striping pattern is Skip Lichter's rebuild of his Saginaw Timber #2 in Wisconsin.

As we finish the Skookum at Oregon Coast Scenic RR, we will be carefully duplicating the original Baldwin factory striping on that 2-4-4-2 to show how she left the factory for Columbia River Belt Line.


Again, it is all in the details.


Martin



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/15 03:21 by LoggerHogger.

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Now, the question also is,  how many loggers kept the engines striped this way after the first re-paint?

Both Brooks-Scanlon and Shevlin-Hixon here in Bend, OR were ver good about re-applying the factory stripping even after the engines were repainted.

As an example, here is the same B-S #6 as shown in the last photo in my post in the late 1940's after several re-paints and she still sports the green boiler and cylinder jacket and factroy stripping.


Martin



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/15 06:37 by LoggerHogger.

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I was wondeing if old George is gonna stripe Porky. But then I figured that would be a waste
of time as Porky would head for the first mudhole and start wallowing and that would be the end of
the stripes.  So sayeth the Ironduke. 

Martin,

I asked the question, because only a few logging and lumber RRs seemed to stay with the Baldwin striping after the first repaint, so it is good to see that some of them in the northwest did  keep up the paint scheme.

Also of note, almost everyone of these were delivered in some variation of all Olive Green, or Olive Green with Planished Iron jacketing. At the Henry Ford Museum, Detroit & Lima Northern #7 has been accurately restored to its as-delivered paint. At Scranton, the NPS is pretty far along in returning Baldwin Locomotive Works #26 to operation with its original Olive Green paint and striping. They look great.

Randolph Ruiz
San Francisco, CA
AAA Architecture

Martin:

You raise an interesting topic.

I recall a number of photos of Sierra Ry. #30 over the years (some of them I believe you've posted before) which show a departure from her factory Baldwin striping. Her factory paint scheme must have lasted for a time, but based on other photos it may have been short lived.

I suppose the paint schemes adopted and applied in restoration may be relative to what era the loco is being painted to represent.

John

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John,

The factory stripping on Sierra Ry #30 was a departure from the standard Baldwin style due to the Sierra placing their railroad name across the top of the tender.

You can see that in later years the stripping was lost all together.

Martin

On a daily working locomotive on a shortline or logging outfit cleaning and sprucing up white wall tires, spoke stripes, and pin striping was probably the last thing any shop or engine crew's mind.  Small locomotives with oil cellars lubricating the main drivers tend to drool all over the tires and and spokes every evening when the locomotive sits in the shop.

Its interesting to see that there is no consistency on painting the short spokes on the drivers. The first engine has only the spoke painted but no continuation on the counterweight. The second engine is exactly the reverse. And the third engine has both the spoke and the extension on the counterweight painted. Pretty much 'pick your choice'.