I am painting a 1926 batch Ps4 for a friend. Were these locos always green, or did they get repainted black after World War 2?

-- Ian Dunn (ianadunn@yahoo.co.uk), December 31, 2004

Answers

Other than the very early years in which the Pacifics were delivered black and gold, the PS4s spent their entire life in green paint. The graphite smoke boxes were painted flat black in the late '40s and early '50s, but the boiler, cab, and tender remained green. A few of the 4-8-2's that were formerly green got a fresh coat of black paint shortly before their retirement. At least one even got the full dulux gold passenger striping on top of the black paint. But as far as I know, the PS4s all went to scrap in green. I have lots of color slides of PS4's taken after WWII, and they are all in green paint (and none have a red cab roof).

-- Tom Alderman (Topa12283@aol.com), January 01, 2005.