Hawk & Badger Railroad Forum

This question is for the 'real' railroaders in the group - those who actually know about real trains. I'm not in this group, that's why I'm asking this question:
Does the color of the smoke from real stream engines match color of the counterpart RT3 steam engines?

I have notice that some RT3 engines belch out black smoke and some belch out white or grey smoke. And some RT3 engines put out lots of smoke while others less smoke. For instance, RT3 Stirlings have black smoke. RT3 Dukes and Fairlies and Cramptons have white smoke. Do the real trains show the same smoke colors? Just curious.

I think the color of the smoke depends on the type of fule the engines burn like coal wood or oil. Coal i assume would be fairly dark, wood mabey gray, and oil i dont know ive seen a picture of the Milwaukee Road engine 261 with grey almost white smoke and i belive it is an oil burner but i could be wrong

It also has to do with how hard an engine is working. On an uphill climb it would most likely be blowing black smoke, while on a flat it would be gray.