The screen print that Randy posted earlier today of the “black” car’s herald didn’t come out very
well, but you can see a larger copy (917 KB) of the whole photo at
http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/utils/ajaxhelper/?CISOROOT=wiu_digimgc&CISOPTR=1447&action="">
which
you can then enlarge to at least 400%to get a good view of all the cars including the ballast cars.
Looking at the “black” car’s herald (and even allowing for the narrowness of the line) the border of the herald certainly appears to be a different colour to the white “Burlington Route” lettering.
Two other points of interest. At the bottom of the siding and just forward of the herald’s position is a curved logo that is similar to the one used by Haskell & Barker on their new cars. If that is a car builder’s logo then any paint job would be original
as opposed to a repaint.
Secondly, there appear to be three lines of lettering on the top left corner of the end nearest the camera instead of the usual two lines. (Can’t remember exactly when the road numbers/letters changed from the left to the right but the XA-3’s built in 1910
were lettered on the left side)
Just in passing, the post card on which this photo appeared was dated October 1910 but may have been printed much earlier. Unless someone has a direct contact with Bushnell Museum (which owns the post card) or WIU (which hosts the photo), I’ll try and find
out some more about the post card, such as original date, photographer, publisher, etc.
Rupert Gamlen
Auckland NZ