Here are some examples of Porters. The Porter Type C was the basic designation Porter bell & Co had for their 6 coupled wheeled locos. The premis of their design was all
about weight on drivers, hence no other wheels other than the basic 0-6-0 and 0-4-0 (type B) designations. The boilers were virtually always wagontop, and identical
whether 0-4-0 or 0-6-0. Cylinders were level or inclined (for better ground clearance). Some offered as 2-4-0 and 2-6-0 types...there was also a larger Porter 2-6-0
design, road locos, some sent to Japan, and others around the US
Here is the basic type C - a builder's photo:
As used on the Martha's Vinyard RR:
As used in the early days in Califnornia, note the two sand domes on these famous old locos 'Felton' and 'Santa Cruz', Felton later renamed 'Dinky'.
Here is the loco from Washington State:
Note a basically identical loco, but with level cylinders. Dr Baker's Walla Walla & Columbia River RR had several Porter locos, this 0-6-0 is the only surviving Type C
that we know of.
The Colorado Central bought 6 type Cs for construction and early service on the Colorado Central - Clear Creek, running up to Central City and to Georgetown (as in the
Georgetown Loop RR). The first two began as 0-6-0T types, quickly rebuilt into 0-6-0 tender locos, while later locos were delivered as 0-6-0 tender locos with some 2-6-0
varients. Also tender options were 4 wheel and 6 wheel.
Here's how the first 2 Colorado Central Porters arrived:
As rebuilt into a gorgious 0-6-0, with fancy paint job, this is the Colorado Central #4, my favorite of the bunch, note the non Porter 'Rogers' style sand dome:
The same loco, repainted black under Union Pacific ownership, (now part of the same Union Pacific that owned the Denver Souyh Park and their Masons at this time! Colorado
Central #4 became the #30:
The 1875 and 1877 batch of Colorado Central's Porter locos also had two steam domes to help with the bad water priming issue, here is the final Porter built for the
road as a 2-6-0 version:
I believe this is an 'as built' look for this engine, one with the 6 wheel tender, similar to the #4/30.
and even some with straight capped stacks - this one, the Union Pacific #32, another favorite!
The Colorado Central #4 was built in 1873, rebuilt 1884 (and again 1885). My model represents the 1884 version with the new air brakes, but before the Union Pacific standard
black paint scheme. (same as she looked in that photo by Henry Jackson at the loop bridge). I still have some minor work to do on her, but here is she, CC #4, 1884, the 2nd
type C 0-6-0 to be built by Porter Bell & Co. (the first was in 1872).
Much of the styrene body work was laser cut from my templates late last year by Rick Raively.
I designed the decal templates on CAD, They were then produced for decal by Stan Cedarleaf, including all the drop shadow lettering!
Here is the lil Colorado Central #4 loco in front of the Carter Bros coach, gives you an idea of size, consistent with the B&W pics..
The green used on this loco is a relatively new Tamyia green, called Tamyia 'Dark Green', product code is 'TS-2', the green is dark, even darker than the photos
show!!! it is initialy disconcerting as it sprays on as quite a light green (Yuck!), but dries reeeel dark. Its Perfect for the Baldwin green of 1877 onward and perfect for the
Bogies too. There are other greens in the Tamyia range, like Olive Green, but trust me...no good for locos...wrong colour of Olive for us! only Tamyia 'Dark Green' or 'British
Green' are any good.
Its believed the Brooks locos on the Colorado Central and Denver South Park of 1880-1883 were possibly painted dark green. Jim Wilke did me some styles charts on these some
time back, as I intend to do the Brooks mogul sometime. Anyway I figure the rebuilt #4 of 1884 was rebuilt by the Union Pacific, but clearly not to their standard black scheme
with big numbers, so I went with the dark green, as their newest Brooks locos were probably dark green. You can see the #4 rebuilt again in 1884 by the Union Pacific, renumbered
as #30, with the big 30 on the tender..Black scheme!
As built, it looks like the Porters #2, 3, 6 and 7 (all built as tender locos) had the box linework on the tender (very much like the Brooks moguls had as delivered), they may
well have been green also when built at Porter. Sadly Jim has not been able to tell us much about Porter's preferred colours. All we know is that the Porter on display at the
1876 Centennia Exposition was wine in colour with red wheels. The Porters of California, 'Santa Cruz' and 'Felton' were probably wine in colour.
So...choices are good. Porters #2 and 3 could well have been wine as delivered in 1875, while the #6 and #7 of 1877 might have been green. impossible to really say. What we
can pretty sure about is that in the 'as built' form, the one colour they were NOT was black. I think #6 and #7 as delivered provided the basis for the decoration for the new
Brooks of 1880.
