RE: EBT #1 "Edward Roberts"
EBT #1, the "Edward Roberts" has finally emerged from the paint shop!
The locomotive is painted as I suspect she would have looked c. 1911, right around the end of her service on the EBT. She got a new boiler and paint job in 1905 (see photo on the first page), and spent a few years pulling the president's business car. In 1908, when the EBT's 2-6-2 (#11) arrived, she took on those duties, so #1 likely went back to her home in the Rockhill Furnace roundhouse, and saw little use from that point on. In 1911, she was leased to the Tuscarora Valley Railroad, being sold outright to them 2 years later. Since I model c. 1912 (give or take a year), I figured this "transition" paint would be perfect.
After doing some digging, I discovered that from 1908 forward, the EBT ordered all their locomotives with Baldwin's standard Olive Green paint with orange lettering. I believe #1 as rebuilt was the first to wear such a paint scheme, though rebuilt by the EBT's shops, not Baldwin. So, I used that as a guide.
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The green is Badger/Accuflex "Seaboard Airline Pullman Green." I tried a number of different brands of paints before I found a color of olive green that I liked. Not all companies' like-named colors are the same. The boiler is painted with Testors/Model Masters "buffable Gunmetal." The smokebox is Folk Art's basic black. I was very impressed with the Badger/Accuflex paint. It airbrushed like a dream, which considering my love/hate relationship with my airbrush is saying something. It also went on with a brush very smoothly. I was originally thinking I'd have to airbrush everything, but in reality, I had to paint only the tender tank with the airbrush. Everything else was done with a regular brush.
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The lettering is custom dry transfers I had done. The orange used by the EBT can't be replicated cleanly on an ALPS printer without running through a ton of orange, red, and white ribbon, and a friend had put me in touch with a print shop in Vancouver who does dry transfers. The lettering itself is larger than what was on the prototype's tender, but it's the same size as what was used on the mikados. The color is a shade lighter than what I would find ideal, but when you're color matching over the internet, you have to expect there to be a few hiccups. Fortunately, weathering the sides with a wash of dilute black paint toned the lettering down perfectly. Since most everything on the EBT had a fairly heavy layer of coal dust on it anyway, this wasn't an issue.
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I wanted the frame and the solid LGB motor block to be hidden in the shadows, so I painted it flat black, while running the locomotive so the paint got behind the wheels. I then went back and brush-painted the wheels with the green paint. I neglected to do my usual trick of spreading vaseline on the treads, so the paint is still rather caked on. I'll probably just let nature take its course there. The crosshead water pump is painted with gold paint. The siderods have gold paint on the pertinent brass details, and is washed with dilute black and brown paint to simulate dirt, soot, and rust.
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I wanted to give this loco the look of a locomotive that was in storage for a while, and brought out to fill a need. As such, I wanted this one to be a bit "dirtier" than I usually weather locos. Some dilute black paint was washed over the top of the boiler to simulate a layer of soot, while some dilute tan paint around the top of the sand dome gives a hint of what's contained therein. I can't confirm whether the locomotive had a number on the sand dome or not, but I thought it balanced the look of the locomotive, so I put one there.
The tender spigot got some gold highlights where paint would have been worn off through normal use and abuse.
The two injectors on the engineer's side. The forward one is from the crosshead, the rear one is a steam-powered injector. There are no injectors on the fireman's side. The builder's plate is from a Delton C-16, who gave its boiler and smokebox (and cylinders and front pilot deck) to this project. I had proper Baldwin builder's plates from Trackside Details, but they were too small to fit in the molded-in indentation in the smokebox. The date's a bit off, but that's what weathering's for. Actually, when the loco was reboilered, the builder's plates were never reinstalled, so technically they shouldn't be there. I was going to putty in the indentations, but forgot to do so until after it was painted. Besides, I like builder's plates.
Some more weathering on the steam dome--hard water stains and some wear on the side of the steam dome where the bell rope would rub against it. The rope is stripped stranded wire painted tan and washed with dilute black paint.
The windows were brushed with Badger/Accuflex matte finish, then scrubbed clean with a Q-tip in the center to give the look of a cleaned window. The running boards were painted black, then sanded down to expose the original wood, then painted with dilute black paint to grey the wood a bit.
The cab is as detailed as I've ever done. Usually I don't fiddle with such things to the extent as I did here, but I figured why not? The bell and whistle ropes extend to the rear cab wall. I had mentioned that I was going to remove the insulating tape prior to painting. I didn't. So, I painted it beige and weathered it. I still need to put proper dial faces on the pressure gauges. The window glazing is held in place with two-sided tape. It's removable if I need to paint again, and very easy to apply. I think I'll be using that technique a lot more.
The back side of the tender, showing the steam-heat connection. #1 was fitted with a steam heat supply specifically for the EBT's business car--at the time the only car on the railroad with steam heat.
Here's a comparison between this and the Bachmann 4-4-0, a locomotive that was built just a few years after this one was.
And from above... The cabs are identical, as are the headlights. I did replace the LED in the headlight with a off-white LED.
Finally, some random views of the loco:
It's rather fitting that this is EBT #1, as this is the first true EBT prototype locomotive on my roster. I'm currently working on a model of EBT #3, a 2-8-0, which is in its VERY nascent stages. It's going to be next winter's project. At some point, Accucraft will deliver my #12, which will get stripped and repainted in this same olive green paint since that's how it was delivered.
I'm waiting for my battery and charger to arrive, so I can install the control. I'm not planning on adding sound at the moment, so I'm putting a big honkin' 4400mAh battery in the tender (Thanks, Stan, for the link!)
Once that arrives, I'll post photos of the loco out stretching its legs.
Later,
K
