i should know this since i grew up watching the santa fe in central texas, but i dont remember seeing the pre 72 dark blue paint scheme and the newer yellowbonnet painted engines with silver painted trucks running together. surely they did, but can anyone confirm this? thanks....
We caught a GP30 at Walong in early '80s so yes the pin stripes were still around after Warbonnets came out. And have seen plenty of pix w/ the two schemes running together post '72.
ATSF took their time on getting the yellowbonnet implemented. They painted as locomotives hit the shop....not in any class order. From what I've seen it took about 4 years to get everything and there were real stragglers. The oddball feature was that the 'original' yellowbonnet scheme did not have silver trucks. Not sure when that started, but the '72 class did not have it. There are also some other units I've seen - specifically GP35's, that have silver trucks on the 1960 scheme, but it's pretty rare. Most times 'light' colored trucks are due to sand spray. McMillans "Route of the Warbonnets" has a lot of black and white shots during this mixed-scheme era 1972-1977. I model the very start of it - summer '72. I saw my very first yellowbonnet from the dome of the Amtrak "Chief" rocketing across Kansas and thought 'what was THAT???' and snapped a blurry, distant, picture. It was on a GP39.
They sure did run them together! Remember seeing both versions many times. The silver trucks started after ATSF applied it to the Bi-Centennial units and found that inspections on silver trucks was much better/easier then on black trucks.
Sorry lost my pix at a "friends" house. Asked the friend who was w/ me then for a copy of his but he can't find it!
