Railway Preservation News • View topic (2025)

Let me start with the fact that I haven't been painting in about a decade, and locomotives for almost two decades--I was much younger then! But FIRST: Wear the protective equipment, IMRON and the suitable primers have some really nasty chemicals in them. I painted locomotives for the Portola Railroad museum, and some of the time it was in the outdoors Probably the most famous one is WP805A. You do want 1) NO wind, 2) almost NO dust; the climate at Portola, until the late afternoon usually fit those two requirements. Generally speaking, work from the top down; you don't want to put overspray on your nicely finished sides when you do the cab roof!
These paints are expensive--nowadays I would say VERY expensive, so you want to reduce waste, we did that buy buying a turbine HVLP system. As I recall, the system was about $800 (20 years ago) and it paid for itself on the first paint job, as we used about half of what would have been needed using a regular (for the time) spray gun, so there was at least $800 savings on materials. Locomotives take a LOT of paint, so I used a 2 quart pressure pot system.
To keep dust down, you can water the ground and areas around the painting area. Fortunately Locomotives, other then the pilots and steps, are already pretty high off the ground, so that helps a LOT. The HVLP system had so little overspray, I could usually paint the trucks without any masking.
DO practice a LOT! The paint is expensive! Mistakes happen, and fixing them can be done. . .with time.
Be aware that if you do a whole body in one color, you will be painting a long time, and outdoors, or under a canopy, the temperature will be changing from morning to day to afternoon. When I painted the main body of WP2001 I was painting all day, and changed reducer temperatures at least 3 times, so have a variety of reducers on hand before you start. While the primers go on easier than the color coats, you do want the primers to be smooth, especially the ones that don't require sanding before color coating (like the epoxy primers such as the Ditzler DP series).
When I did these jobs I would prime bare & sanded painted metal with DP primer, do any "bondo" body work, or high-build primer-surfacer, and then seal it with another coat of DP.
PLAN your painting. Where are you going to start & stop; Cab corners are a good edge for this, start by giving the ending corner a light coat so when you come around to it again, you can direct the spray out away from the already painted (and drying) side, yet have full coverage on the corner edge.
Pay attention to the mills of finish you are applying, the manufacturer's recommendations are best, don't go too thin, but don't go too thick either. As I recall, 1.5 mills was "ideal." 2 mills would probably be OK, but 2.5 mills likely will cause problems down the road. Also, when I did the 2001, we painted the lettering black on first, then (after some curing time) masked it with self-adhesive lettering masks (cut by a computer!) Then applied the color coat; this way the lettering was slightly recessed, and would not be worn off over the years. Also plan what colors to put on first and last, in the case of the 2001, I recall we did the roof (black) then the silver sides, upper and lower, and finally the Orange. Silver has a hard time hiding what is below it, and reds (orange is a variation on it) tend to bleed through. On 805A the red feather was put on last, and the white striping first (even before the orange body as I recall. Hmm I have pictures--somewhere. . . . That was a long time ago, I am surprised I remember this much!
Now I will admit, the color coats were Centari, not Imron, which does spray slightly differently. The flow out is different, and you will have to play with it to learn it. Fortunately trains are LARGE objects, they didn't originally come with "20 feet deep" smooth finishes, some "orange peel" is acceptable. Don't go too much with your first color coat, it is the " setting" coat that the next coat grabs onto (and be careful how long a time between the set coat and the final coat; you sorta have to work your way around the engine. How do I explain this? Go so far with your first set coat until the time is right for where you started the set coat, and go back and do the final coat up to about where you stopped the set coat, continue with the set coat, and go back and blend in the top coat where you stopped--as long as your timing is good, the paint will flow together, especially if you can do it where panels end or a corner, even if it's a rounded corner. With metallic finishes, like the silver, you have to be really careful to keep the paint agitated (some marbles in the paint can help) so the metallic particles are in suspension--and you can't let it flow out too much or the metallic particles start to run in the finish.
I hope I haven't scared you off, as it really is a rewarding thing to do when it all goes right. We won't talk about the other possibility. . .
Here's a picture of a much smaller object, but one with lots of problem surfaces. This finish is Concept, somewhat very akin to Imron. Flow out on this was helped by cool weather, and I could turn the wheel to stop runs--can't do that with a locomotive!

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I found some pics I took in 2017 of 805A and 2001, mind you I painted these in the 1990s, so they have weathered some, but the finish is (I think) still good.

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805A nose in 2017.jpg [ 61.58 KiB | Viewed 12221 times ]

And a close up of the "wing"

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And now the 2001, undergoing some servicing at the time; note the front outside corner of the cab, that was my "start-stop" point, also note the curves on the nose; those were good places to "blend the "going around" first coat and top coat. (is this clear as mud??

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2001 in 2017.jpg [ 34.5 KiB | Viewed 12221 times ]

And as for painting outside, this B unit was prepped and painted outside.

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