I was on Oddball Decals website the other day and noticed he makes decals for the blue and white stripe paint scheme on the early Baldwin switchers. I had never seen a color picture and did not realize the lettering was red. Does anyone know when this scheme disappeared and the black and yellow appeared? Still looking at starting a West Bottoms layout and was going to use 0-6-0s and /or Baldwins. Time period would be between the end of the War and the flood, say 1950. I was wondering if I could use this never modeled color scheme that I have seen. John
John, The blue and white scheme was applied to the Baldwins upon delivery. As far as how long it lasted, I think they made it until the late 1940s. I believe that it was also applied to at least one GE 44-ton. I thought I had a shot of it but I cannot find it. I also scratch built a Davenport 44-tonner and painted it up in the blue and white scheme that it carried during the war years. Brad
1942-built Davenport SLSF 1 wore the blue and white livery. I could have sworn that Don Wirth had posted a picture of one of his blue and white Baldwin VOs. He may not wish to "own-up" to having a diesel.
The definitive proof! http://www.frisco.org/vb/showpost.php?p=10304&postcount=49 Don has served his penance. Back on the topic at hand, I somewhere recall seeing that the blue/red switchers quickly changed to blue and white, I do not know the date, and then to black and yellow around 1948 or whenever the cab units started arriving. I think there is also a picture in Frisco in Color of a switch engine that was in dark blue with yellow/gold strips and Roman-style "FRISCO LINES" lettering? Need to look at either the old FMIG newsletters or Mike Condren's website. I think he may have an old "Paint Shop" column that addressed switch engine unit paint schemes. Best Regards,
Page 18 of Frisco in Color shows a Baldwin VO-1000 in dark blue with yellow markings including FRISCO LINES in yellow. There are only two other blue and white diesels that I have ever seen. One is the GE 44-ton SLSF 5 found at this link that was posted by Don Wirth. http://www.frisco.org/vb/showthread.php?t=668 The SLSF 5 is posed on the west side of the Missouri Dry Dock & Repair machine shop in Cape Girardeau, MO. I remember seeing that engine doing the local switching jobs in Cape when I was just a pup. The other blue and white diesel was the SLSF 1 Davenport 44-ton pictured on page 28 of Frisco Diesel Power. It was apparently re-painted black later as seen in the photograph. http://www.frisco.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=741&d=1129233592
SLSF 226 on page 18 of Frisco In Color must have lost a bunch of color hue in the printing process. It is very difficult for me to see the published color as dark blue in my copy of the book. Looks like fresh black. Andre Ming
Does anyone know the color of the trucks and underframe on the blue and white VO-660s or the VO-1000s? I have only seen black and white photographs and it appears to be a light gray or maybe silver. Thank you. Larry F.
I will bet on silver. That is what Don did on his SLSF 204. I am sure he researched it well, and that is what Tom calls for on his Oddballs decal set 87-773 for the early Frisco blue VOs. Regarding the paint to use, I would suggest an aluminum rather than a silver. Recommend ModelMaster 1781 aluminum, rather than ModelMaster 1790 chrome silver. A darker shade, perhaps for a well weathered unit, would be ModelMaster 1780 steel. Ken
