Green Peanut Roasters
Okay, maybe it's rude to call the Ulster & Delaware's 19 Class "peanut roasters." The things were pretty large locomotives for their time. But they could, I assure you, roast some peanuts strategically placed on a sanitized #6 scoop. I'm fascinated by locomotive colors. I come from a background where it was assumed most steam locomotives after the 1880s were black. After all, why wouldn't you assume that? Most steam engines in modern preservation (in the US, anyway) are black, and when you look at B&W photos they appear monotone. So why wouldn't they be black? Railroads ran on coal. The world was dirtier back then. It makes sense that steam engines, which would get sooty all the time, would be painted a color designed to minimize their filth. Turns out that narrative isn't always true - including for the Ulster & Delaware in 1899. ~ In the 1890s, the Catskill's presiding mainline, the torturous and scenic "Up & Down" tha...
