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UP 844 paint sheme

Folks,

I am trying to paint my UP FEF-3 4-8-4 O scale model, as the famous 844 engine in two-tone gray.

Pictures of this engine are hard to find, because it has been repainted recently in black and silver scheme. I was able to locate a single picture of the 844, by night, in its two tone gray dress.

I have a few questions (sorry if they seem so obvious):

1) Were the rear of the elephant ears painted in black or dark gray? 2) Was the smoke box door painted in Silver or light gray? 3) Cabin roof, main stack and sand dome look very dark. Was it dark gray or the black used on the entire chassis? 4) Drivers: Were they painted black or was it some other color? 5) Front lights: Apparently, the top light is a red light (probably used when the engine was reversed) and the bottom light is the traditional headlight. Was this engine equipped with Mars Light?

Any help or pictures pointers would be very welcome, as I am having a hard time finding exactly how this engine was painted, during that era.

Thanks in advance. Yves

Reply to
Yves
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The UP Historical Society magazine "The Streamliner" in Vol.4 No.1 of Jan

1988 had an article "Two Tone Gray" by Lou Schmitz. Yhe article describes the history of the gray scheme as applied to locos and rolling stock. The article includes the UP painting diagram for "Steam Locomotives in Passenger Service" using an outline of FEF-1 #809. The drawing is dated 12/26/46, an shows the lettering/striping to be silver-gray, but has revision A listed in the rev block dtd 6/2/49 saying "lettering and striping was Armour yellow". The following answers are based on this diagram and other photos in the article:

No smoke deflectors are shown on the drawing, but the article includes a left "3/4" shot of 836 that clearly shows the back of the right side deflector to be light gray.

The diagram implies that the entire smokebox was light gray like the boiler jacket as no other color is called out. Pictures of FEFs in the article are not as clear as pictured of 7000 class mountains in gray. The 7000's have the same flat color, lighter than the glossy light gray boiler jackets, on the sides and front of the smokebox. Since the paint drawing applies to all passenger steam, the 800's should be the same.

Black

Black

All the FEFs received the red Mars lights in 1947. I doubt it was used in reverse moves. My understanding is that Mars lights or Gyra-lights were used as attention getters when operating at speed to help avoid motor vehicle accidents.

Reply to
Geezer

Correction to the above: I don't have a UP rule book, but one for the ICG addresses oscillating headlights. Rule 17-c deals with white oscillating lights - if the loco is so equipped, the white osc. light is to be on whenever the headlight is on bright, except that if the regular headlight fails, the oscillation may be turned off and the non-osc. light used as a substitute for the failed regular headlight. Rule 17-d deals with red osc. lights. If the loco is so equipped, the red osc. light is to be turned on when ever the train is stopped by an emergency brake application, is disabled, and/or may be fouling the adjacent track. I suspect the UP rules were similar. Geezer

Reply to
Geezer

Geezer,

Thanks so much as always, for all your knowledge and your diligence at responding all my questions. All the above will be very helpful.

Yves

Reply to
Yves

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here's i little help I hope...

Good Luck !

RJB

Reply to
RJ

Thank you all for the nice pictures of the 844 in action. With all these I should have no problem painting my model.

I still have a question about the Mars Light on the 844. Since we have only two headlights in the front of the engine, and the top one is a red light, where would the Mars light be? I have a hard time imagining that engineer and brakeman would have to cope with an undulating/fluctuating light as their main source of light at night.

Could someone elaborate more? Was the main headlight used temporarily as a Mars Light under certain conditions? Sorry for the dumb question, but I am trying to understand.

Yves

RJ wrote:

Reply to
Yves

The top light - the one with the red lens - is the Mars light.

Reply to
Mark Newton

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