Rock Island GP35 #323

Yet another GP35 joins the fleet, this time it's #323.

I did take the liberties of adding a few rust spots to cab.

It's the only GP35 that wore the Red and Yellow scheme and along the way I realized that it had a couple of oddities with the scheme.

The first thing I noticed was the lack of the nose herald, the second thing were the faces of the steps below the cab.  Normally on this scheme and the maroon and Yellow scheme these faces were Maroon or Red.  The third thing was the bottoms of the end handrails, at some point the original silver was painted white.

Thanks to Jim Merrick for the explanation of the white paint on the handrails.

I'm gonna repost it on the page so that it's not lost in the comments.

Jim MerrickOctober 11, 2022 at 9:54 AM

Explanation on the white steps and rails: That last photo is from the late '70s, after the red paint went away and all the shop had was white or blue. The last several years of ops saw a LOT of white touch-up happen on red or maroon units. Up until somewhere around 1977 or so, the touch-ups were done in the "correct" matching colors. Touch-ups happen a lot, especially on steps and pilots and plows and nose/cab front, as those are high-wear areas.