A few thoughts…
Details: The loco is in dire need of some added details. Definitely the appropriate piping for the air compressor, water injector lines, boiler bands, whistle, safety valves, bell cord, sanding levers, sanding lines, etc. (I’d add two boiler bands; one between the sand dome and rear steam dome, and one just forward of the cab wall.) The domes themselves are okay, though the steam dome is a little, well, little. You’d at the very least want to model some kind of lid on the two sand domes along with the sand lines. For the steam dome, I’d put two safety valves on the top, and then do a side-mounted whistle on the engineer’s side. If you wanted to replace them altogether, Trackside Details has some brass dome castings which would work well. You could just cut off the old domes and replace them with the TD domes, but that might get a little crowded. I’d be tempted in that case to re-wrap the boiler with .005" styrene and just go with one sand dome and one steam dome. (If you look at the loco, there’s already a molded “line” just above the running boards. I’d run the styrene wrapper from there, up and over to the other side and call it good.) Oh, and get rid of that European generator and replace it with a proper Pyle National generator, putting it between the rear sand dome and the front of the cab. If you wanted to get adventurous, you could move the headlight to the top of the firebox where the bell is, and move the bell, though with the two sand domes, steam dome, and generator, space on the top of the boiler is getting tight. You could mount the bell off to the side where the current generator is.
Valve Gear: Fr. Fred’s assessment of the Piko valve gear is pretty much on target. However, this loco has piston valves, and Stephenson’s valve gear was rarely used with piston valves. (I’ve never seen an example, though I cannot completely rule it out). I think just toning it down with some paint will work well. I’d use a medium steel color or gunmetal. You could also paint it black. Many railroads did not paint their valve gear because they could check for cracks much more easily (that, and it always got oily and dirty anyway), but there are plenty of examples where railroads did as well.
Paint: You can never go wrong with “basic black” on a steam loco. By the 1920s, that was pretty much what was being pushed out by the loco builders. The painted boilers as modeled on this loco follow a practice that originated in the individual railroads’ shops, I want to say sometime in the 30s or 40s. There are many rumors surrounding the origins of the D&RGW’s green boilers, but most point to the shops’ own initiative. The SP had a few locos with some wild jackets as well, believed to be the result of friendly competition in the shops. Blue and grey were popular if I recall history correctly. In almost all the cases I’m familiar with, the boiler jacket is painted in color, but the domes are black to match the cab and the rest of the loco. I’ve used dark green on some of my boilers, though it’s definitely a darker shade than what’s on this one. Great Northern Green is a good, dark green if you wanted to go that route. On locos for my dad’s railroad, I used a slightly lighter shade of green. (Krylon, I think, though I can’t remember the specific color.)
You can see how the addition of proper plumbing and boiler bands really tones down the excessive color. You can also see in this photo the toned-down valve gear, using graphite-colored paint and black. Handrails, also, should be painted black. That brass is decidedly too much. The smokebox can be flat black, graphite, silver, even glossy black. (You could tell when the East Broad Top prepped a loco for an excursion; its smokebox got a fresh coat of the glossiest black paint. Haven’t a clue how long it lasted–not long, though.) The graphite color comes from the early days when there were no paints which could stand up to the heat of the boiler, so the crews used oiled graphite to coat the outside of the smokebox. Later, more heat-resistant paints became available (that’s also when you saw the switch from plannished iron jackets to painted ones) and smokeboxes got painted instead. Some railroads went with silver paint–arguably in homage to the sheen of the graphite, while others went with black because, well, soot.
That’s at least my first gut instinct on what I’d do if one of these locos were to materialize on my workbench with a note attached that said “make me look good.”
Later,
K
Im just trying to get rid of the “toy train” look.