lightning stripe E7 question (B&M)

Hi everyone,
I just bought an early B&M E7 in HO scale; custom painted in the lightning stripe paint scheme.

My question:
Was the rear third actually painted white or silver? My model is white. I guess I've only seen b&w photos of these engines, so I always assumed they were silver to match up with the stainless equipment better.

Also, does anyone have a modification close in the oversized opening on the P2k pilot?...or is there a replacement available.

Thanks for any help!

>>Was the rear third actually painted white or silver?

Ah, Grasshopper, you have opened the Pandora's Box of religious fanaticism (howzat for mixing metaphors?) among the local B&M rail enthusiast community. May the Deity save you from the calamity which is about to befall you.

You will find discussions on this subject by a search on both railroad.net and Yahoo! However, you will find that the "silvers" and the "whites" are about as amenable to agreement as John Kerry and Sarah Palin.

Having attained superannuated (a Lucius Beebe word) status, I can state that I have actually seen the paint sceme in question with my own eyeballs, and it was white ... of course, chalky, faded silver or aluminum could appear to be white ...

I will pray for you.

PBM

This paint scheme was gone before I was born, but I'm still going to risk an opinion and go with White.
my collection, photographer unknown, and just ignore the typed on caption.

edit to add: These engines probobly didn't haul ss equipment very often, if ever.

They sure were pretty! Too bad that one of them wasn't preserved.

A memory -- always a dangerous and questionable source -- is that there was a B&MRRHS discussion about this a decade or more ago. Because most of the existing headend equipment was standard and not stainless, white paint was chosen. That doesn't make much sense to me, but some B&M paint choices -- like originally having red roofs for road-painted ALCOs -- were puzzling. The white could look sharp until road schmutz had concreted itself to the sides, which didn't take too long. It accordingly didn't take too long for the white to be repainted.

Thanks everyone!
I'll go along with the white. One thing I noticed today... on my model, the roof was painted black like a later-schemed E7, also silver trucks. The one in the photo appears to be white/red with black trucks.
That won't bother me every time I look at it, right?

AFAIK, trucks weren't painted silver until 1953 or 1954. AFAIK the 1946 E7s delivered in "Rock Island" were repainted maroon/gold by 1948.

Oh well...I got the engine as part of a package deal anyways!
Maybe a nice NYC shell will come around my way some day to go with those silver trucks haha.

Great topic! I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about streamliners, but I've never seen a B&M locomotive in this paint job before. Thanks for sharing. It's interesting that one of the posters calls them "Rock Island', that's the first thing I thought.

The "Bluebird" scheme as applied to at least one E-7 (#3814) had a white cab rear end as well. The front end had a white stripe. If anyone is old enough to remember Pleasure Island in Wakefield, this is the E-7 that sat there. I won't tell you who the boy is in the photograph due to concern of wardrobe criticism.

Is there a good online collection of photographic examples of the various paint schemes? I had never seen this lightning stripe version until I read this thread, and it seem that photos of the E-series are hard to find for some reason. Obviously there are dozens of little variants to each scheme as things are patched, tested, modified over the years, but some basic stock or listing would be helpful (or at least some advice on how to research that). Thanks!

jlarose wrote:Is there a good online collection of photographic examples of the various paint schemes? I had never seen this lightning stripe version until I read this thread, and it seem that photos of the E-series are hard to find for some reason. Obviously there are dozens of little variants to each scheme as things are patched, tested, modified over the years, but some basic stock or listing would be helpful (or at least some advice on how to research that). Thanks!

I dont know of any organized reference work like that, but NERail.org hosts almost 5000 photos of the B&M .
a few examples of E-units,
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... =4&key=195
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... =7&key=195
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... 13&key=195
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... 19&key=195
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... 24&key=195
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... 39&key=195
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... 63&key=195
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... 65&key=195
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... 88&key=195
etc.
these are culled from the results of the sort by decade 1950s, there might be some in the 1940's selection as well.
there is also a couple on http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bm/bm-loco.html
armed with a good roster like this one,
http://home.comcast.net/~railimages/bmros2.htm
you should be able to assemble what you are looking for.

with regard to the E7's, I believe most were delivered new in the "Rock Island" scheme, were then all repainted to the gold stripe scheme within the first few years, and finally 3814 only, got the McGinnis era blue bowtie scheme around 1956. all were retired in 1959.

Eliphaz wrote: with regard to the E7's, I believe they delivered new in the "Rock Island" scheme, were then all repainted to the gold stripe scheme within the first few years, and finally 3814 only, got the McGinnis era blue bowtie scheme around 1956. all were retired in 1959.

3814 and 3806 teamed up to pull a special Dwight D. Eisenhower presidential campaign tour train in 1952. 3806 wasn't painted in the Bluebird scheme to match 3814 ? (Was 3814 in Bluebird in 1952 ?)

several references say only 3814 among the E-7s got the blue treatment.
one cite - "Trackside around Boston 1942-1962 with Lawson Hill" by Carl Byron http://forums.railfan.net/Images/NScale ... ill800.jpg
I do not have a good reference as to when exactly 3814 was repainted. Could it really have been as early as '52?

The McGinnis era seems to be 1956-1962, so I'm assuming that 3814's Bluebird was a repaint, probably around 1957. If so, that probably answers my question as both 3814 and 3806 would have been in maroon for Ike. 3814 went to Pleasure Island's "Engine City" in 1959 in Bluebird, and was far from "just out of the paint shop" then.