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@Patrick wrote:
My friend in England asked the following:
“I assume real T&P locos did not have graphite boilers in regular service, but they may have had red lead paint on their cab roofs????? Do you know how the T&P painted their engines in the heyday of small steam?”
He is trying to model a couple of small TP steamers. Can anyone help him?
TP steam did in later years have a heat resistant silver paint—- to replace the earlier graphite and oil— on the smokebox and firebox. This got grimy and dark in service but they did keep the other areas wiped down and kept clean even if there was no Russia Iron paint. A gray can even be used here.
Graphite and oil was used since pre WW2 paints did not do well with heat. The red paint on the roof of the cab was originally red lead primer that was unpainted since it would react with real paint but usually became sooty over time.
Jim Ogden
