Re: GM27 sighting

A suggestion Russell... take your mind back to Inverleigh, Wingeel & Vite Vite and imagine that ballast train hauled by GM27 in that "fabulous red colour" BUT with silver bogies. Why silver you may ask? Well, remember the SAR locos (900's & 930's in SAR red & silver, 600's in original "carnation red" & silver or 700's & 830's in mustard pot & silver) and how their bogie appearance still showed the silver colour long after they had worked every SAR broad & std gauge route a hundred times? Yes, they were dirty, however, the silver still showed through the grime. With black bogies the grime obliterates the black colour almost entirely after time and the bogies end up a lousy shade of brown with no black coming through at all. You then have a loco presenting your Company image to the broad marketplace with a brown bottom third or half and with a now-tiring top third or half as its only company identifier. Very often, the brown grime colour does not enhance or sit well with the Companies' originally intended colour scheme or image on its locos. At least with a dirty silver bottom third or half, the Companies' image or colour scheme is intact albeit dirty after time because the silver still manages to show through the grime. The Company image may be less "tarnished" as a result.

Image is important, particularly with todays Railway Companies struggling to overcome the stranglehold that road transport has on the freight task in Australia. Road transport Companies are not frightened to display their chosen LIVERY as graphically as possible and with obvious image & business success. Rail must also...