Author Topic: Relettering #7 & #8 to there Edville look for a special event.  (Read 8156 times)

Matthew Gustafson

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It whould be cool to see how they look when they used to run at Ediville.  ::) ;) :)
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Vincent "Lightning" LeRow

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Re: Relettering #7 & #8 to there Edville look for a special event.
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2009, 02:37:54 PM »
I don't know if you will find much support for this one Matt, for a large protion of thier life at edavile the locomotives were painted in a cartoonish manner that would rival a kender's outfit. (Imagine that a roll of life savers and the rainbow both exploded at the same time in the roundhouse and call that a paint job  :P ). And after that they were painted black with Edaville on the tanks and the numbers on the steam domes. (much the same as they are liveried now.  the only exception would be #7 with "F Richardson" stenciled under the window frame.)  Unfortunantly, anlthough a colorful locomotive could be interesting there won't likely be any demand for a 2' circus train in the near, or far for that matter, future.  ;)

BTW, i'm sure you could find some clips of the rainbow locos on youtube.  It's incredible how much of a historical resource that website can be at times....
« Last Edit: March 07, 2009, 02:39:31 PM by Vincent LeRow »
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Bill Piche

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Re: Relettering #7 & #8 to there Edville look for a special event.
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2009, 09:04:41 PM »
Here's a link to some galleries with some pretty unique pics that I found about a year and a half ago.

http://mainetwofooters.fotopic.net/

You can also always go to NERail.com and sift through the Edaville pics, there are some old school ones in there.

Edaville's engines actually looked much like they did in Maine for the first 5-6 years in Massachusetts. Ellis Atwood wanted a real working railroad, and so the engines and cars more or less retained their Maine look to them.

When Atwood's widow and his sons ran the railroad, then the strange colors started coming out. (Funny story: On Monson #4, if you look at places on the cab and running boards where the paint is peeling or has been stripped off, you can actually see remnants of the different colors that it used to be painted. I personally have found fire engine red, royal blue, and some sort of puke green in different areas around the cab.)

When Nelson Blount took over in the 50s, the cars and engines continued to be painted in strange color combinations (making colors movies and photos from that era both a blessing and a curse). Blount also dressed the engines up with brass boiler bands (which they all still have to this day), old style headlights and fake diamond stacks (which were replaced with authentic parts upon their move to MNG). All of the locomotives had names on the cab, not just #7. I don't know what was on #3 and #4, but Blount's name was on the cab of #8 (which he considered the king of the Edaville fleet).

I think that during George Bartholomew's time running Edaville saw the equipment paint scheme's become the generic "Edaville" yellow with green trim that we all know from the late 70s and early 80s.
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Stewart "Start" Rhine

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Re: Relettering #7 & #8 to there Edville look for a special event.
« Reply #3 on: March 08, 2009, 08:30:05 AM »
Thanks for the link Bill,  Interesting stuff.  I see there's some good KC enginehouse foundation photos from 1980 on there too.