06-30-2012, 07:53 AM
With exceptions, the railroads kept their diesels pretty clean up to about 1960. The Santa Fe, though, had loco washers at major terminals, and washed its locos consistently up until BNSF. (In fact, they'd touch up the silver on passenger loco pilots and chassis with spray cans after every run.) The photo Larry links to is typical -- about the most that would happen is that the silver on the zebra stripes would chalk and weather into a white, but the silver is still pretty good in that photo. I added some road grime to the trucks and battery boxes of mine, but based on the photo Larry linked and some others, I should probably make the battery boxes plain black again.
