On Wed, Jun 24, 2020 at 07:12 PM, Matt Goodman wrote:

I can’t imagine steel and coal reacted much differently then vs 1985. 

 

But paint did. The National Environmental Protection Act of 1970 was not kind to paint manufacturers, forcing them to stop using a lot of traditional materials, all to the detriment of paint performance.

I think what you are looking at is the original black paint is at the end of its useful life, the entire surface eroded to the point where rust is bleeding through. Note the brown cast, compared to the newer black paint on the patch panels. The pigment washing off the letters is white, but it is mixing with the rust residue to become a light brown. A general wash of brown over the whole car would likely duplicate the effect, but I'm not sure you want to. That general overall haze of rust does not seem to be common in steam era photos, unless it is dust from the environment, such as found on the iron ore roads.

Dennis Storzek

It’s interesting that the streaking/fading down from the lettering is rust colored - not white. I just weathered a batch of cars with a white fade last week. If I’d seen this photo when Garth initially went it, I may have tried the rust on a few letters.