Can someone tell me what were the colors of CP box cars late 1800’s, early 1900’s?
Thank you, Peter Smith Memphis
If you mean CP as in Central Pacific, Beebe’s book The Central and Southern Pacific has scads of old wet plate negative prints that would give you the lettering arrangement. I would imagine that basic box car red would probably do for the color.
Given the absence of Kodachrome from that era, who’s to quibble?
If you mean CP as in CPR some of our nieghbors from the frozen north could probably give you a source for the lettering and I would supose ditto on the shade of paint.
In those days paints were commonly mixed by the painter so there might be some fairly wide variations in color, but any reddish brown would be appropriate.
Dave H.
I’d go with a fairly dark boxcar red (almost chocolate) for a new car, and lighten that base color with white for an older car that’s seen some fading. Old paint didn’t last too long (and chalked rather quickly), so repainting was frequent. Since batches WERE usually locally mixed and prone to lots of interpretation (I’m sure what specs there were read something like, “Freight cars are to be painted with a dark-reddish brown paint”), you can basically paint the cars whatever you’d like. I mentioned the chocolate color, since that’s what the Harriman rail empire specified around 1900. The had to get that color from SOMEWHERE, and the larger predecessor roads seem a likely candidate.