"Picked up this M3 today off of a guy on Craigslist for $200 he said it was his grandpa's horn and it came from the San Diego area, I noticed that he had started to strip the paint off of it and on the bottom layer of paint it is an orange color and is stamped I 53 B. Does anyone know where this horn may have come from and does the 53 mean it is from 1953? Thanks."
(comments)
KT: "Looks very similar to mine as far as paint goes. Has to be former SP, Cotton Belt, or DRGW. And yes 53 means 1953. Same year as mine."
MP: "I know you said San Diego, but lest we not forget that GTW had black M3's with orange/red underneath."
BD: "Good point Mike! There looks to be a coat of yellow paint too"
MP: "Well, to me it sounds like it's a good chance it's a GTW horn, they had yellow M3's on their geeps and F's when they had the joint CNR scheme, then black/red when they changed to the new joint scheme. So yellow, red, then black sounds pretty dead on to me. But then again, DRGW also used yellow, then orange, and black."
MF: "Rio Grande never had yellow on the roofs where the horns were. Even on the F units where the yellow was on the front, the horns were on the black part of the roof."
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