Model Railroading > Preserving the SP in HO scale: Halloween project

Back in the mid to late 1950s , in a quest to simplify and thusly make it cheaper to maintain the black widow paint scheme on Espees massive flee of diesels, Management on Market street decided to experiment some by using very conservative orange and black colors to adorn their locomotives which was soon termed “Halloween” colors by most who saw them in person.
Applied to a few engines of almost every type on the system, the EMD F7 cab units were no exception.
When a good friend of mine came forward with the idea of reproducing a Halloween test paint scheme unit in H.O. scale, I accepted the challenge at doing such a project.

view #1;
Soon a package showed up here at Tufts Locomotive Works with a nice new & clean Genesis F7 a unit with the Black widow paint scheme inside.

view #2;
Engine 6342 was chosen as the unit to model so the first order of business for the TLW shop forces was to remove the stock F7 front pilot and replace it the typical snow plow pilots common to many of Espees F7 fleet.

view #3;
Next up was to paint over the silver nose, orange strips and red carbody strips using a matching black paint by masking the balance of cab body (and cab windows) to retain the stock lettering.

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view #4;
Next up was some tedious masking to duplicate the "Halloween Bat" wings
on the nose.

views #5 & #6
A good uniform coat of “Daylight” orange was then applied to the nose and again an over-nite cure was required.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/14 17:15 by P5r24.

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remaining 3 views;
Finally,
after its new engine number and some medium weathering were applied,
the 6342 with its new spooky look was ready for mainline service,

Thanks for looking,

Gary



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/14 17:18 by P5r24.

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Nice job Gary I know some will hate me for this, but I actually like this scheme.

Kris

Looks great, Gary. Thanks for showing the process and results.

~Ryan

Very Nice Gary!

Javier Cervantes
Castle Rock , CO

I loved the extra tall F idea - be kind of funny to get it to run that way, and have it pulling a bunch of double stacks... :)

dcmkris Wrote:
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> Nice job Gary I know some will hate me for this,
> but I actually like this scheme.
>
> Kris


I'm one of those guys who thought the scheme was ugly. Your paint job is excellent.

THANKS FOR SHARING THESE VIEWS. I'VE NEVER SEEN AN SP ENGINE IN THAT SCHEME.

FRANK 30

Frank,

Here is one of the experimental F7 units
as second unit in a lashup on Beaumont hill up near the top.

What?
no houses!
Wouldn't it be so Nice.

Gary



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/14 14:30 by P5r24.

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Wish Athearn or Intermountain would do them.
TAH

I want to know what THAT sounded
Ike going up that hill.

Thomas G.

Great job! I really like the "Halloween" scheme and appreciate it when anyone decides to model a unit.

There were about 200 units that receive the black and orange Halloween scheme between approximately March 1957 - July 1968. That's about double the number of diesels that wore the Daylight scheme. Almost all units repainted during the 14 month period received Halloween, save the Daylight passenger units and a few others. Some cab units even had the orange paint applied in the same shape as the later gray & scarlet, plus there are other variations. Many Halloween units were repainted into gray within five years, but some kept it to the early 70s.

No SSW units received Halloween, but the standard SSW road switcher and switcher scheme was similar.

A roster of SP / TNO / SSW locos that wore unusual paint schemes is available for download here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80998212/SP_Uncommon_Paint_Schemes.xlsx

Any additions or corrections are welcome.