Green Peanut Roasters
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.
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In the 1890s, the Catskill's presiding mainline, the torturous and scenic "Up & Down" that sidewinded as many hills as it climbed, found itself the victim of a problem railroads love to have: it was generating too much traffic to keep up with motive power availability. Management was planning to standard-gauge a narrow-gauge branch line to a lucrative resort region, and it was projected the railroad would imminently reach its long-sought goal of completion to Oneonta, NY - which with a connection to the Delaware & Hudson and its coal route, would surge traffic. For this the railroad needed new, larger locomotives than the smaller power it was currently operating with.
Schenectady was written, and the same plant that furnished the Central Pacific's "Jupiter" in 1868 built three new locomotives for the U&D. Departing from the U&D's standard roster of 4-4-0s, the new engines would be 4-6-0s - four pilot wheels, six 60" drivers, and no trailing wheels. They came on the road between April and June 1899, and were put to work.
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| #21 in Phoenicia, NY about 1899, pinstriped as the gods and Schenectady intended. SMU |
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| #22 at Kaaterskill Junction in 1899. Note that the track on the right, to Tannersville, has already been standard-gauged, while the branch on the left to Hunter is still three-foot-gauge. SMU |
Immediately #'s 19-22 were a hit. They muscled the long strings of Pullmans up the dizzying heights of the Stony Clove; laid over nights at the new terminus in Oneonta. The U&D had hit upon something that worked. So much so that, in the following decade, the railroad would buy an additional nineteen 4-6-0s, identical or very similar to this first order of three, and almost exclusively these engines would remain the sole power system-wide until the end of steam in 1948.
So, the engines were useful. What's this about green?
I first learned about green from the Baldwin Locomotive Works. Apparently, Baldwin (based in Philly) really liked green. If you asked for a black locomotive they'd give you one - but fail to say so, and the engine delivered to your doorstep would be green, pilot to end sill, axles and piping and bell bracket included, all the way through to 1951.
Of course, by that time most railroads would ask for black, but the point remains that Baldwin, a designer and manufacturer, favored green.
Why?
My amateur research hasn't yielded an answer to that. But in the 1890s, according to David Fletcher, who penned the definitive book about Baldwin paint colors and decorative style in 2021, it had to do with economy and durability. The Pennsylvania Railroad argued that green weathered well, and could be applied in fewer coats, than black. Plus, other roads argued, it hid dirt better than black. So, around 1899, the year #'s 19-22 were delivered to the U&D, there was about a 50/50 chance of them being green or black.
If they were green, it would've been a dark, rich green. See this picture of Detroit & Lima Northern #7, a restored 1897 Baldwin.
Still, it's different from the all-black machines I always envisioned when looking at historic photos of U&D locomotives.
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| Wikimedia Commons |
Trim, Mr. Fletcher wrote me, was likely gold and red. Oddly, 1899 graduates of Schenectady seemed to share a detail in common: the red pinstriping was used only on the tender, not the locomotive. This includes the Florence & Cripple Creek #20 when it was freshly built - otherwise known as today's Rio Grande Southern #20.
There are a few other things to note. The U&D engines were built with jacketed smokeboxes - an extra extravagance that held no mechanical function and was purely an aesthetic choice. Those jackets would've been a lustrous bare American iron, polished to reflect the sky. To boot, there was not a corner of the engines untouched by pinstriping, from the pilot and cylinders to the cab - in an era when plenty Schenectady steeds for other railroads were much plainer. Does this support green or black? William Dewar Ellis's ghost is mum. But it supports that the U&D, in 1899, wanted the highest-finish engines available to impress the throngs of vacationers heading to play in the Catskills, and the wealthy who had summer homes there.
Alas, if the U&D had records that might help us, they are not known to survive - nor is much definitive paint documentation specific to Schenectady. (Although little color info on Schenectady survives, Baldwin was a follower, not a trend-setter, of industry paint trends, and Mr. Fletcher feels green at the time was widespread enough as to cover Schenectady.)
I did reach out to renowned Catskill railroad author and historian John Ham about the mystery. Did he know anything about how U&D power was painted? Turns out that some seventy-odd years ago, he, at the age I am now, asked a retired Ulster & Delaware employee, Raymond Baldwin, the very same question. Baldwin had hired on in 1899 - the very year these engines arrived. Baldwin's answer? U&D engines were 'a semi-shiny black, with graphite smokeboxes.'
Enough to discount my theory.
Except the off chance that Baldwin's recollection was based on the majority of years in his experience - and the majority of engines. Surely, by 1905 the entire fleet was black. But is it just possible Raymond overlooked the very infant years of ten-wheelers on the U&D, and in those first few years of his employment, three engines could've been green?
It is with that hope that I humbly submit, ol #'s 19-22, maybe, just possibly, could've been green.
Sources:
Best, Gerald M. Ulster & Delaware: Railroad Through the Catskills. 1972. Golden West Books.
Ham, John M., & Bucenec, Robert K. The Grand Old Stations and Steam Locomotives of the Ulster & Delaware. 2005. Stony Clove & Catskill Mountain press.
Ulster & Delaware 1904 Supreme Court Case: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Supreme_Court/z7NfP7VCH4EC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=ulster+and+delaware+railroad+locomotive&pg=RA4-PA229&printsec=frontcover
Fletcher, David. Australia's Colourful American Locomotives, Their Art & Architecture. 2021. Light Railway Research Society of Australia, Inc.
David Fletcher, email correspondence.
John Ham, email correspondence.
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