Several months back, we were talking about the Frisco's attempts to use "economy" paint schemes during the later years of their diesel locomotive's operational lives. Ugh. I'm currently working on a Stewart F7B in the all-black economy scheme, and two years or so ago, I finished Frisco E8 2006, formerly "Traveller", in the red & yellow cigar band economy scheme. I call it my "BUB" - "Big Ugly Beast". I hated this paint scheme in real life - how could the Frisco take away those beautiful "Racehorses" for this ungainly treatment to a stately E8? However, I must admit - when this thing comes down the track in HO scale, it looks pretty good when mixed in with a Racehorse unit. I usually run it as the trailing unit as it has no lighting. This started as an undec P2K E8. Another person painted it (I'm no good at masking), and then I detailed it and finished it off. Roster pics attached. Ken ps - I know, it shouldn't have a radio antenna. I stuck one on the roof before thinking about it, and decided to leave it there because I like the look of an antenna. At the end of the passenger era, the Frisco (I think) tried using a few of their remaining E's briefly in light freight service, with poor results. Does anybody know if they put in a radio for that experiment?
Ken, many thanks for sharing. Pretty it ain't but it's a nice slide of history, at least we could say this scheme headed up the point of some of the last Frisco passenger trains.
Downgrade that it was from the classic E-unit paint scheme (especially from the period when the stripes were gold outlined in white), it still beats the red with a white stripe that a couple of the units acquired before being retired. Gordon
Gordon - Indeed, the red/orange & white looked pretty spiffy on the later GP's, SD's & SW's, etc, but it looked horrible to my eye when applied to the F's, FP's and, in particular, the E's! Ugh! Ken
The mandarin and white was sorta "OK" when brand new fresh, but about fifteen minutes later...yuk. Tom
Any use of white on a railroad locomotive, or on a freight car, is usually pretty brutal over time. I'd have been happier if they stayed with the black & yellow. Ken
I agree with you totally, however, let me make a comment about "BUB". First of all, it's a very nicely done model. Second of all, the side views are pretty impressive to me - but nowhere near as nice as the #1 paint jobs. Third of all, the head end view looks "stark" as if something was left off -which is why it makes the whole locomotive "BUB". Forth of all, at least it an't green
I think that this is the way to do this, if it's not - go and look at the E-8 section. The racehorse is the paint sceme that has the gold stripes outlined in White - and the names of the "racehorses" on the side of the locomotive http://www.frisco.org/vb/attachment.php?
Well ... I guess that it did not link. I don't know how to post a link to something on the forum, so I will describe a "racehorse". It has a long tail, short pointy ears, long nose, and sometimes is shown with a very small person on top wearing a funny looking cap.
Have a look at these ..... EMD builders photos. These are black & white pics, but the Frisco "Racehorse" colors were a red body, with gold stripes and lettering, outlined in white, with a royal blue coonskin herald on the nose, and silver trucks. A strikingly good looking locomotive! This particular unit, SLSF 2020, Big Red, was to be named after the then leading racehorse of the century, Man-O-War. But, that particular horse had its name copyrighted. So, the SLSF, always innovative, named this unit after Man-O-War's popular nickname - Big Red. Love that story! This is my, and many, many others, favorite Frisco E-unit of the 23 on the SLSF roster. Ken
For Frisco Modeler Hopefully: heres a link to one of the best pictures I have seen of one of the Racehorses: http://condrenrails.com/Frisco/Frisco_PaintShop_Es.htm Look at #2015 about 1/2 way down the page. Absolutely gorgeous! But I do think they look better with the white outlines around the gold.
I know the prototype paint scheme is about as bland as white bread with mayo, but the modeling job (including paint) is quite impressive. And I do thank you for not showing us what an E8 in O/W looks like Personally, I like the racehorse scheme, and think it would look really nice on, say, either an Amtrak AMD103 or a BNSF SD70ACe. Definitely the classiest scheme I've seen on an E-unit.
Ha! I can assure you that there will never be an O/W paint job applied to any Frisco E-unit of mine! Ugh! Being a Frisco black & yellow era guy, I don't even like the O/W paint scheme on the many Frisco locomotives on which it looked very good. In the interest of full disclosure, I bought my "BUB" E8, SLSF 2006, in the red and yellow cigar band scheme, already painted, from a guy on eBay. He sent me a bunch of photos that looked real good, so I went for it and was not dissapointed. No way I could have painted it that neatly - he did a great job on it. I then added details and accents plus a few more decals to his basic paint job. Ken
