A question ..... have any of you who are running the Proto 2000 E8's in the Frisco gold & white outlined stripe & lettering scheme (the way they came from P2K) bothered to change out the black Frisco nose herald to the as-delivered blue coonskin, as is provided in the Herald King decal set? I haven't. I have all four of the P2K SLSF E8's detailed and in service, but have left them with the black coonskin on the nose. I'm wondering if they look OK with the blue HK decal? The shade of blue used on the decal is a bit lighter than what I think the real thing was, but I always thought the blue nose herald gave these units a real distinctive look when new. I don't think the blue weathered very well - most of my pics of this scheme show them to be pretty gamey looking. I have enough HK decal sets to do all four, but I might try doing just one at first to see what it looks like. If I lay the HK decal directly on top of the P2K black herald, it might darken it down a bit. Has anybody tried this? Thanks. Ken ps - I also still have a 5th P2K E8, painted in the later, economy yellow cigar band scheme, which correctly has a black nose herald. I posted some pics of this unit, SLSF 2006, on the forum several months ago. Golly!, that thing is ugly when compared to the various E7/E8 "Racehorse" schemes, be they either the gold/white or the deluxe (yellow) striped schemes these big guys ran in for most of their service on the SLSF. The deluxe scheme also used a black herald.
FYI as a follow-up to my comments above ..... I pulled out my sets of Herald-King Frisco E8 decals. The shade of blue on the nose coonskin decal looks to be about right when compared to my pics, as opposed to my comment above where I said it was a bit light. We'll see what one looks like on the nose of a P2K Frisco E8. Ken
Ken-- I am ashamed to admit that I didn't even notice that it was wrong. In my defense, this was the first Frisco loco I ever bought, the one that got me started with the Frisco.
No problem! In my early days as a member of FMIG, I was told the Frisco "Racehorse" E8's, and E7's, in their as-delivered or as-rebuilt paint scheme, had a blue nose coonskin herald. I didn't believe them, until shortly thereafter I got a copy of the Frisco painting diagram for the E8's (or E7's, whichever it was, I don't recall). Sure enough, blue herald! Then, later on, I remembered an encounter I had in Rolla back in the 1962-1963 timeframe in which I happened by the depot on my way to lunch when #3 came in for its stop. On the point was SLSF 2000, the class E7 unit, still wearing its original (after being "Racehorsed") gold/white outline/red scheme. It was horribly weathered, and looked dirty and very tired. I had not ever seen the original paint scheme before, as the vast majority of the Frisco E's by then had the deluxe gold (yellow) and red scheme (with a black nose coonskin herald). As I walked around SLSF 2000 while it sat at the Rolla depot, my eye was drawn to the nose herald. The paint was almost totally weathered away to bare metal, but I recalled noting the few scraps of background paint that remained on the coonskin were ..... blue. How about that! I had forgotten that encounter until I heard about the blue herald from FMIG and had seen the painting diagram. Ken
Ken-- Is Herald King still making decals? I thought I read somewhere they were closing up shop. EDIT: Herald King is still here: http://www.heraldkingdecals.com/ I must have been thinking of Champ, who was selling off inventory before closing up. They're still active, too, it seems. How about the Microscale set? http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2...ode=87-455&Category_Code=SLSF&Product_Count=3 It looks like it has blue nose heralds, but I can't make out if they are Texas Special Coonskins.
Yes, Herald King was gone for a few years, but now they are back - I assume under new ownership. I've used several of their decals, Frisco and others, and generally have liked them. The Microscale E-unit decal sheet I have has black coonskin heralds, #87-455. This set has been revised by Microscale (improved greatly I'm told, as the original was not very well done), though I have not seen the new set (same number). I still have the full set of Herald King Frisco decals - in fact several sets of most of them, as I picked up a bunch when TinkerTown was selling off their stock prior to closing. Sure do miss that shop! I used the Herald King Frisco diesel fuel t/c decal set (#T-460) on a Red Caboose tank car six months ago and all went on well. Ken
