breezinup posted:Blue Streak posted:Correct me if I am wrong but what I think Hot Water is saying is and I totally agree with is. There are many "Southern Pacific Lines" engines with white walls usually as Hot Water states - Builder Photos, Special events, etc. I have seen zero "Southern Pacific" engines with white walls Unless maybe some special deal - but I have not seen any in over 15 or so books I have looked through. ..... I would love to be proved wrong.
Well, I think one of the points that has been made quite clearly in the foregoing, both in photos and references Bob2 made, is that there were indeed some SP GS engines that were in active service with whitewalls, and not just for "some special deal." Bob notes a reference showing an engine still with whitewalls after 10 months service, for example. One of the photos above shows a whitewall GS with a soiled boiler, clearly in service and not a builder's photo or special event. The majority may have run with just blackwalls, but still if a person likes a whitewall version and wants to get such a model, they needn't feel that operational GS engines with white walls never existed.
I'll say this again, and for the last time in this thread; it all depends on the time frame a person is attempting to model! Note, that the photos posted above are all primarily from the late 1930s thru the early i940s (note the location of the train number indicators). If one is modeling the late 1940s thru the mid 1950s, then there were NO white tires/wheel rims.
