Allen, no worries. The only pictures I could find of 4710 was the one that is in Louis A. Marre book, Rock Island color pictorial volume 3 and a few on the web. Unfortunately all I have used for this project showed a 3/4 front view so I could not see the rear. On further review in Louis's book, I do see white on the rear portion of the frame step area. So in the end, I guess it's up for debate. I will note that many Rock Island experts believe this fact in my upcoming article however. No hornets nest stirred, and I'll sleep fine tonight. If I can find better solid proof of the rear white steps, I could easily change it.
For those wanting working links to what Allen posted... http://dufordmodelworks.com/RI4710a.html http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1881572
Thanks Jerry! Not sure what happened, they were working when I posted them? Didn't notice them until I read your post. Hmmm Thanks again Jerry
By '56 is certainly a good rough date. Unfortunately that's well after any of the DL looked like the model. I'm curious where they got the paint scheme from. I can't find any pictures with that striping pattern. I'll have to check some books later tonight. Jason
Yeah, I can't find any either. It's got one too many stripes for the early 60's scheme and one too few stripes for the late 50's scheme. Either this one fell between the two, or maybe LL/Walthers was looking at E3 pictures. -Mark
I did some checking around and the concensus seems to be that 622 and 623 never had the 3-stripe scheme that LL/Walthers used on their models. I suppose one could remove the top stripe if one were so inclined. Either that, or try to add a fourth stripe along the bottom edge (unfortunately, there's not a great deal of room there for such things). In any case, given all of the modifications the prototypes had undergone by the time they were sporting this newer paint scheme (as compared to Life-Like's "as built" model), the incorrect striping seems like the least of one's worries. Oh well, they're pretty models in any case. And since I'm already running a PA/PB lashup in Rock Island paint I'm probably the last person who should be griping about prototypical inaccuracies -Mark
It seems the 109s are more popular than I thought !!! I have two in the full Rocket scheme, and I really like these things !!! Now I'm just wondering if anyone has built, or planning to build "Christine" (# 621).
I'd like to see a picture of your PA/PB's in RI paint, I have an undecorated set just begging for a paint job..
Direct from the "what if" department And for the truly ambitious, here's somebody else's (sorry, I forget who) in full-on Rocket paint - -Mark
If you find the new LL/Walthers DL-109 difficult to swallow, well, things could be (and have been) a lot worse -Mark
