This project started out with a post by Luther Brefo on the NY forum of railroad.net, about the colors for the B&H locos.
Luther wants to model one of them in HO scale.
I also have wanted to someday model these engines! I model in "Large Scale" (also called G scale)
USA trains just came out with a 1/29 scale model of the Alco S4.
Converting a S4 to a S1 would take some work, but it could be done.
The most obvious mods needed are a narrower front grill, and the blunt trucks.
I believe there are people working on the trucks as aftermarket parts!
So someyear soon I will get working on this project.

Meanwhile, a bit of history on B&H 4 and 5..

Both are Alco S1 switchers.
Both were built in 1950.

#4, Alco #78139, was built as Nickel Plate 85, then Norfolk & Western 2085, then B&H 4.
#5, Alco #77077, was built as New York Central 872, then Despatch 5, then B&H 5.

The two Alcos arrived on the B&H in 1970, and were used on the ancestral B&H mainline between Bath and Hammondsport NY, serving mainly wineries. (hence  "The Champagne Route!")

They were only 2 locomotives on the B&H roster between 1970 and 1996, when the B&H was absorbed into the Livonia, Avon & Lakeville system.

Today, (2006) there are three locomotives lettered for the B&H, #4, #5 and 422.
Sadly, the original B&H mainline between Bath and Hammondsport is out of service and not in use,
although most of the rails are still in place.
Today's B&H operates between Wayland and Painted Post, NY, on the old DL&W mainline,
as a part of the LAL system.
 

Ok then...on to COLOR!
Color among model railroaders is a BIG DEAL!
because we all want our models to be as accurate as possible..
especially if we are going to custom-paint them.
(Im a LV fan..volumes have been written on "correct Cornell Red!)

Determining the correct color from photos is risky, and usually not terribly accurate.
If  your prototype no longer exists, photos are the only option.
and yes, photos can do a decent job, if you think the photo is well balanced.
everyone has a close idea of what LV Cornell red looked like, we have plenty of good photos,
so we can all get very close..probably close enough.
but in this case, we have the real thing!
so why not try to match directly to the prototype?! 

But, you may ask,  why not just take a good photo to the Model train shop, get a few bottles of paint that look close, test them out and compare them to your photo, and say "good enough"?
What is wrong with using photos?

Here is what is wrong, take a look at this photo:
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=137565

How does it look?
ok?
actually, its hidiously awful, terrible, amazingly bad.
Not the photo itself! the photo itself is brilliant!
Willsboro Bay on the old D&H..stunning!
The problem is an amazingly terrible color balance..I cant believe the RR.net screeners
let it through like that.
I put a comment with that photo and offered a corrected version, seen here:
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u45/scottychaos/GaryKnapp.jpg
 

That is why you cant rely on photos..color can be way off and many people dont even notice.
Here is another example, from this actual B&H project:

does *that* photo look ok?
99% of people would say "sure, looks perfectly fine to me."
but again, its very very too blue.
My digital camera is ancient..it was a cloudy day, and on overcast day my camera gives a blue cast to everything. I could tell just by looking at my original photos that they had an overall blue cast, so I used photoshop to return neutrals to a true neutral, removing the overall blue cast:

You might not have noticed anything was wrong before..but now with the "corrected" version on the right, the Blue of the original leaps right out!

But notice how different the red looks in the 2 versions..which one is "correct"
neither really..

One more example..
look at the photo at the top of this webpage.
nice bright red huh? ;)
sorry..its not real.
I tweaked the saturation of the red channel only, to make a better looking photo for my "title image"
that red is also not accurate to reality..
and I wont even get into monitor calibration! 
None of you are even seeing the exact same colors on your screen as I am on my screen.
and no two printers are alike.

Ok, so photos cant be trusted..what then?
You can try THIS!

Go to your friendly neighboorhood paintstore/Home Depot/Lowes, etc, and pick up a bunch of paint samples. (these particular samples came from the Panorama Trail Home Depot)
I didnt take a photo of the engine with me to HD, I just picked out a range of reds I thought would be close. I knew some were off the scale, and would be wrong, but *somewhere* in my selection of 13 different reds, the correct one should be in there!

This brings us to yet another problem with color matching..
faded color of the protoype.
this engine hasnt been painted in decades..the red is quite faded.
what to do??
nothing you can do..just find a spot that looks the *least* faded and go wih that.
If you want the original, fresh red the unit was first painted in, well..short of inventing a time machine, we will never know exactly what red that was..but for me, this current red is plenty good enough!

Ideally, you could maybe find some unfaded original paint inside doors and such, an area that has been proected from sun and weather, but I didnt have permission to climb on the engine, so that idea is out for now.

I found a patch of red on the side of the cab that looked good..not as faded as the rest of the unit..

We have a winner!! 
and the winner is "Glidden Drum Beat"
on the front:

Drum Beat
00YR 08/409

"Drum beat" is the top sample, the other two reds below it are "Victorian Red" and "Flaming Sword"

(I have the actual color sample here at my desk as I type this..holding it up to the screen, it looks NOTHING like the photo!! the actual color sample is a much darker red..it looks hugely different on the screen..again, proves the point of why photos are bad for matching color! ;)

but thats ok!
because now we have a real-life, honest color match, that has been held up and compared to the actual prototype..

now this color sample can be used to test model paints!
(I wouldnt try the actual Glidden paint! ;) that is house paint)
get a selection of model railroad paints, paint some grey primer on a few scrap strips of styrene, paint up your red samples, and compare to the real color sample..should work nicely! 

Now, onto a selection of detail shots of B&H 4.
 

Thats it for now!
sometime this summer I will try to find #5 and document her as well.
she was probably right there in Cohocton as I photographed her sister, but she was locked up inside the engine house, and it was Sunday and the railroad was shut down for the day.

Next time perhaps...stay tuned.
 
 
 

Some related links.

NY forum on railroad.net

LAL forum on railroad.net

LAL Railfan 

NY Alcos

LAL official site
 
 

Scot Lawrence
Rochester, NY

sscotsman@yahoo.com

Back to Scot's main page