Steam & Excursion > The Paint Worn By These Steam Locomotives Has A Funny Story!

Most locomotives toiled through their years in a standard black paint scheme for the most part. Sure, some engines like the Daylights were lucky enough to be passenger engines adorned with fancy paint schemes befitting their passenger roles. However, in most cases black was the predominant paint adorning most all steam locomotives.

The rule requiring black paint was certainly predominant on most engines assigned to logging duties in the Pacific Northwest. That rule was in place for decades on the the Simpson Timber Company of Shelton, Washington until one unique incident changed that.

Shelton is located on the base of the Hood Canal in Northwestern Washington State. this region is known for it dark and gloomy days filled with constant rain showers. It was on just one such day in the 1940's that one of Simpson's superintendents was driving in Simpson's woods to camp to inspect his operations. Well, as it turned out, he never made it to camp because along the way he ran his truck smack-dab into the side of one of Simpson's steam locomotives that was crossing the forest roads the superintendent was traveling on.

After the superintendent recovered physically from the incident (albeit still suffering a bruised ego), he immediately issued an order that the Simpson roundhouse crews would immediately paint bright orange panels on the sides of the tenders and cabs of the steam locomotives so as to make them stand out from the dark green forests that they traveled through from mill to landing and back.

17 Gallons of bright orange paint were delivered to Irish section boss Ed Dooley on March 17 of that year and he was ordered to apply it on that day. Dooley balked at the order saying "I cana do such a thing on St. Patrick's Day". In honor of his Irish heritage Dooley was given a one-day reprieve for the order to paint the engines orange.

In this view we see the result of that directive as we watch Simpson 2-8-2 #3 bringing her log train through Knights Landing into Shelton in the early 1950's. The orange panels ordered by the certainly sill embarrassed Simpson superintendent are clearly adorning this logging lokie as ordered.

I wonder if the superintendent ever lived this down?

Martin



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 08/16/17 04:26 by LoggerHogger.

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Just surprised he did not make the crew wear optic reflective vest. :) I thought that there might have been an orange panel placed on the pilot, and orange or white tires on running board. Neat story.

The Irish part was great!

Love the size of those logs.


Nudge

LoggerHogger Wrote:
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>
> I wonder if the superintendent ever lived this
> down?
>

I worked for a superintendent who ran his hirail through a switch and derailed. There were four train dispatchers in the car. There was no problem living it down - it didn't happen.

TAW

If the Irish shop man had had his way the panels would have been orange, green and white!

Have fun, be safe,
Bruce "Doc" Jones Sierra Madre CA


tomstp Wrote:
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> The Irish part was great!

Now what if he had run into the side of a log car, as surely they blended in even more so....would he have required each log to be painted orange too!?

Ego trips humor me.

Posted from Android

Before the days of 3M reflective tape dashes that every car and locomotive is supposed to have today.

Wow those are some big pickles behind the tender. They must be around four to five feet in diameter. Today the mills in my area don't even want them and consider them almost culls. They can't saw them in the standard mills here anymore and only pay about $200 a thousand for them. To cut anything over 27 inches on the butt end, they have to call in somebody with a custom portable mill to whittle them down.

Thanks for another nice photo.

Craig Hanson
Vay, ID