@AmFlyer posted:That is a classy looking engine.
I agree! What really made the scheme unique was that each engine was given either a famous racehorse name like "Cavalcade", "Whirlaway" (Kentucky Derby, Triple Crown winners/etc), or a horse of significance in history such as "Ranger" (horse of Revolutionary war hero Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee), "Commanche" (the only member of the U.S. Calvary to survive the Battle of Little Big Horn), etc.
My favorite of the series was #2020 "Big Red". The history of that name was that the Frisco originally wanted to use the name of the famous race horse "Man o' War" but was prevented from doing so by copyright, so they used "Man o' War's" nickname that wasn't copyrighted: "Big Red". IF there was such a thing as the perfect name for 70', 315,000 lbs of 85 MPH steel painted fire-engine red , "Big Red" was surely it!
The scheme really doesn't have an "official" name. Some refer to it as the "Meteor" because of one of the name trains that such pulled, others called them "Redbirds", still others called them "Racehorses".
The scheme went through three phases before being replaced.
Meteor: The above engine pic represents the original paint scheme consisting of Fire Engine Red with gold cat whiskers, stripes, and lettering. This one is referred to by Friscophiles as the "Meteor" scheme.
Full Meteor: Very shortly after delivery, it was decided to add a white outline to all striping and lettering to make it stand out better. Here's an example of that scheme:
Meteorite: In the late 1950s, some of the units began to receive a more cost effective paint scheme that did away with the white outline, and used yellow paint for the whiskers/striping/name/etc. This one was referred to by enthusiasts as the "Meteorite" scheme as exemplified by this modified E7:
In 1964, the Frisco began to implement an "austerity" scheme on their freight engines to save repaint costs. The carbody F's began to lose their stripes, and instead a single "Cigar Band" was applied to the nose. This quickly bled over to the E unit fleet, and a few of the E's were painted in such a scheme. When painted into the "Cigar Band" or "Austerity" scheme, the engine lost its horse name. Here's an example of that scheme on an E7m:
In early 1965, the Frisco decided to standardize the paint scheme to what was intended to be a more visible (for crossings) Mandarin Orange & White scheme. The O&W scheme was worn by a few of the remaining E's. If you can stand to look at it, here's an example of that scheme:
The lurid O&W scheme is almost an insult to what the E unit fleet proudly wore throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s.
So, there you have it. That's the way the Frisco painted their E's from about 1950 or so onward.
Andre
