Hi,
I finally picked up a brand new - very old - Athearn Menzies metal kit for a Western Pacific boxcar. This is the one with silver paint and the full size orange feather - a very beautiful design for sure!
Anyway, the car has a build date of 7-45, and also has the markings “TUC 12-62”. Can you decipher that?
Also, when was this particular paint job applied? I can’t believe it was the original one.
Thanks,
Mobilman44
That would be the location and date it was reweighed. I cannot think of any locations on WP that would be abbreviated TUC. Perhaps it was Tucson, AZ on the SP, but I would think it would be SP 12-62 if that was the case.
The first WP cars to wear the all silver scheme were 40ft PS-1s in the 20801-20820 series blt in 1951 and equipped with Pullman’s Compartmentizer bulkheads to reduce damage to cargo. In 1952, the cars were renumbered to 19501-19520. At that time, another group of random cars (some perhaps with a 1945 blt date) were sent to Pullman to be similarly equipped with lading devices; these cars were repainted silver with black ends and roof (black car cement) and numbered 19521-19542. The 1945 blt date on your car is consistent with this latter group, which originally had mineral red sides.
The silver paint weathered badly, and the entire series of Compartmentizer-equipped cars was repainted mineral red with smaller orange feather, orange roadname, and yellow stencils in the late 50s. As 50ft cars became more popular, the Compartmentizers were removed and the cars reverted to the 20801 series.
The weigh station stencil TUC indeed represents Tucson. Any road would reweigh another’s cars if they required reweighing while on their rails (i.e. at the request of a shipper or, more likely, the previous reweigh had expired – I think it was a 30-month period for the 50s and 60s).
Good Morning!
Thank you, you guys are Great!!!
I do have one more question that perhaps you could answer…
The car number is 20935. When this car would have carried the “full feather” paint scheme?
Thank you again,
Mobilman44
Never, at least with that road number. Only two groups of WP cars received the silver paint:
So only cars bearing numbers in the series 19501-19542 carried the silver scheme. A car numbered 20935 would have been painted mineral red, either continuously (never painted silver) or before and after service as part of the 19521-19542 series (painted silver).
Repainting from silver to mineral red probably occurred in the period 1956 to 1959. The earlier date is about when WP adopted the scheme of yellow Western serif roadname, yellow stencils, and simplified sans serif ‘Feather River Route’ slogan with no feather.
To correct an error I made previously: All silver WP 40ft cars carried a BLT date of 1951, so a 1945 BLT date would be inappropriate.
Shilshole,
Thanks for the quick comeback! I sure do appreciate your answer, but of course that means I have a kit for a car that never existed (in that paint scheme).
I have to say one of my biggest pet peeves with MR manufacturers has been the production of cars and locos with roadnames or color schemes that never happened. Of course this was very common in earlier years, but even today it still happens.
I searched long and hard for a model - preferrably a kit - of the full feather paint scheme with silver background, and now have a problem. Do I resell it on Ebay, or put the thing together and just appreciate the car for what it is???
Hey, thanks again,
Mobilman44
My pleasure, M44. I’ve been interested in the WP because of its Bieber, CA, connection with the GN; a couple weeks ago one of my daughters gave me a copy of Jim Eager’s excellent Western Pacific Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment, in which the numbering details of the silver cars are presented, so your questions were timely.
Since you asked: If it were my kit, I’d keep it and build it exactly as is. I’ve completed similar quests, and the fact that the models have the “wrong” roofs, ends, number of side panels, and/or stencil data haven’t diminished my enjoyment in the least.
The fact is, nobody’s ever offered a prototypically correct orange-feathered silver PS-1. Kadee issued three WP PS-1s with 7ft doors RTR, but all carried the as-built mineral red scheme with square black-and-silver ‘Feather River Route’ herald. Anyone could strip one of those (or get an undec), paint it silver or silver and black, and apply Microscale decals set 87-438 (if they were ever in stock) to get a very close replica. On the other hand, very few are in a position to be building and running an historic kit as a “stand-in” for that prototype.
The Menzies (formerly Athearn) metal kits are very enjoyable to build and with care the finished model looks really nice. Somehow painted metal looks more like painted metal …
Dave Nelson
The “TUC 12-62” would refer to Tucumcarri on the SP. A car need not be rewieghed on home rails but rather at any RR’s shop where it recieved repairs that might have affected its wieght.
I wondered about that. I would not be surprised if Tucson was TUS, as it is for everything else. But I do not know, for sure, either way.
Are you sure TUC is Tucumcari and not Tucson? Everytime I have seen TUC, it was always Tucson. SP probably got to Tucson before Tucumcari. Also, it seems like SP had shops at Tucson, I do not recall hearing about shops at Tucumcari.
TUC = Tucson
T = Tucumcari
Search for TUC in this most excellent .pdf file: http://www.steamfreightcars.com/prototype/resources/StationandReweighSymbols.pdf.