Does the color of the box car indicate or designate it’s particular use? Are there any limitations on the colors that canbe used for box cars if so what are they? I’ve seen brown, white, gray, Blue, green, yellow, reddish/brown.
No, Santa, the color doesn’t really indicate anything except for a particular railroad’s preference. Any color of paint you can buy has probably been used on box cars at one time or another.
There were times in the past (mostly around the 1960s and 70s) when railroads would use different colors to indicate certain assignments or features of the cars. Back then, on the C&O, blue box cars had cushioning devices, black cars had special equipment, yellow cars were insulated, and unequipped, non-cushioned box cars were a wine red color. On UP, the yellow box cars had cushioning devices, red cars did not. On the Canadian Pacific, newsprint box cars were green, others were red. CN used yellow doors to indicate its newsprint box cars. The Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railroad, through the 1960s and 1970s, used just about every color of the rainbow on their freight cars–don’t know if they signified anything.
Historically, red oxide or brown have been the cheapest pigments to obtain and apply (barns were painted red for the same reason), and they tend to show the dirt less than most other colors.
Yup, oxide red / boxcar red was dirt cheap, because back before artificial paint coloring was invented it was made from…well, dirt. Or more accurately, soil or clay with iron oxide in it. A cheap and durable paint.
When artificial colors came about in 1859, railroads used other colors. At one time a kind of straw yellow was common for boxcars and passenger cars, and many railroads had a “White Mail” made of white or cream mailcars.
In the “standard era” between the world wars, boxcars and most any other freight car could generally be found in boxcar red. Reefers were usually yellow, but orange and white were common (partly to help distinguish them from boxcars, so the RR could keep track of whether they needed to be re-iced or not. Some railroads painted gondolas, flats, or hopper cars black. Most covered hoppers were gray, perhaps because they often carried light colored materials like concrete?? Cabooses were usually bright red, but again other colors were around.
Passenger cars then would be Pullman Green, a fairly dark olive green color. A few RR’s like the CNW and MILW used yellow or orange, and the Pennsy and Soo used maroon.
Did SP do the same thing in the 1960s? I noticed when at pictures of uninsulated, double plug door SP and SSW boxcars from that era that most have one door painted yellow.
Eric, I’m not sure what the single yellow door of a pair on SP cars indicated (but I do remember that). I don’t think SP did much in the way of newsprint business, though.
What I do remember for SP was the fleet of 40-foot box cars rebuilt with wider single doors, with a yellow line diagonally across them to call attention to their width.
the color variety is why i love box cars so much. the red and brown ones are the most common in Altoona. they even have their very own siding in the yard
Hear, hear, Lord Atmo!! One small question (to anybody): SP used to have, I believe, a forward-pointing diagonal yellow slash on the doors of some of its “tuscan red” boxcars. What did that signify? Did it have the same meaning that the yellow doors on the CN boxcars did?
Riprap
Have a look at Carl’s latest post.
Thanks for the reference, EricSP. Back on the DT&I color scheme (or lack thereof, since they seemed to have no preference) what would the corporate motivation or strategy have been with that? No other RR appeared to have done the same thing. It’s great for the railfan, but did it serve any practical purpose? We can all b***** and moan about Armour yellow, but it is synonymous with UP. Why wouldn’t DT&I have wanted to do the same thing?
Riprap
I have read that the DT&I used what ever they had on hand or could find at the local paint supplier. Which is why they had so many different colors and that some of the similar ones didn’t exactly match.
During the 1960s when Union Pacific started building run-though freights for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy (No. Platte - U.P. - Grand Island - C.B.& Q. - Galesburg), U.P. assigned a special series of cabooses to this service. Whereas the Q’s cabooses were all painted silver, U.P. did the same for those assigned to this pool. These cabs carried red U.P. lettering and were numbered in the 25000 series. Why the U.P. made this special effort to paint a limited number of cabooses in something other than their standard colors is unknown to me.
Other than the silver ones, U.P. had a few cabooses painted either silver or quartz green for work train service, but the vast majority were painted Armour Yellow.
And getting back to the SP, does anyone remember those oversized, bright-red SP boxcars with the letters “SP” in red on white background? (as opposed to the “tuscan red” ones) What were they used for?
Riprap
Rip, those were hi-cube auto parts cars. Many railroads adorned these with special paint schemes (the larger size afforded them a bigger billboard) when they were built, usually in the mid- to late 1960s. By the 1970s, things were usually toned down a bit. Just today, I saw one of these cars fully repainted in UP style, but with an SP “Sunset” logo.
As to the DT&I, there has to be a little more to it than the “local paint supplier” line you were handed. These cars came from the builders this way. I don’t think that any of the hi-cube box car manufacturers, for example, had some leftover purple from somebody else’s cars! (I don’t remember which series came in which colors very often, but it sure seems like the railroad went out of their way to not make things uniform.)
this reminds me of my favorite box cars. the green BN ones. the green just really has a nice look for a box car. then i like the red and blue ones almost as much. but i havent seen a green BN box car for a good long time. the BN locomotives pulling them. oh what a site. BN hoppers were awesome too
when i’m not raving about how i love CNW, i must admit i love BN
Perhaps DT&I simply specified “red,” whereas other railroads might have specified “XYZ #1234.”
Nothing would beat a string of CP Action Red with the white and black multi mark, as long as they where clean anyway [:D]
Thanks for the answer, Carl…Next topic: Does anyone remember the Rail Box leasing company (TTX was/is another one, but I think UP solely owns them, don’t they?) They painted their stock in a uniform yellow hue, but lettered and numbered their cars for different RRs (I saw these lettered for UP, SP, BN, SOU (I think) and A-BOX), so I took that to mean that they could manufacture cars for different roads. If they could, then my question is, Why didn’t those different roads request RailBox to paint the contracted stock in their individual company colors? Also…Carl (or anybody else) I’ve never seen any purple rolling stock (not grape purple, anyway). Does it exist? Unless I were Welch’s Grape Juice I don’t think there’d be any reason to choose purple, would there?!
Riprap
Railbox was wholly owned by TTX. It has now been folded into TTX. Many railroads own part of TTX. The reporting marks for the various railroads were on these cars because they were sold, or otherwise transfered, to those railroads (I do not know the details). Railbox was not a manufacturer, they bought cars from FMC, Pacific Car & Foundry, American Car & Foundry, Pullman Standard, Berwick Forge & Fabricating (I fixed it), United States Railway Supply(?)/Evans (I think these may have been used), Golden Tye. ABOX was another reporting mark for Railbox (now it is for TTX), for cars with a 10’ sliding door and 6’ plug door. Also, add MP to that list of railroads cars were transfered to. It is too bad Athearn decided not to continue the former MDC kits as kits, instead they chucked them in the the RTR line.
I have seen tankcars leased to Welch Foods, they are black.
I am going to have to go out the the Ford distribution center and see if I can find any of those SP cars still painted for SP.