I just finished doing a bit of window shopping on various on-line model railroading stores and I noticed that the majority of rolling stock is box car brown… I did however see a Great Northern box car that was red, yellow reefers and a blue B&O car but that was about all. Do any of you know of any steam era rolling stock that’s any other color than brown ?. Thanks in advance.
Tracklayer
There are some steam era cars that are colorful, State Of Maine red/white/blue box cars come to mind as well as reefers, but for the most part they were pretty plain. The railroads had started to minimize the time and money spent painting rolling stock out of concern for efficiency and cost. Besides, how pretty you gonna paint it if it’s just covered in soot after a short time?
If you really want to model some color, model the “Billboard Era” of rolling stock. That occured in the late 1800’s throught the early 1900’s sometime. Lots of colorful private owner cars. As always of course, the google machine is your friend.
Lou
For my money, the transition era through the 1960s had the widest variety of railroad car colors. I have yellow reefers, red box cars, red and grey box cars, white, blue, green and you name it. During the late transition era the railroads were trying to woe customers and used bright colors and large logos to gain attention.
When the standard box car went to 50’ the colors multiplied. Jade Green. Bright Yellow. New Haven Red. NYC Red and Grey, and on and on.
I you have to stick in the ‘steam era’ you are going to be limited in car color. Remember what Henry Ford said, “They can have any color they want as long as it is black.” Since it is your railroad you can do what you like. Who besides you, is going to read the build date on the cars you use?
Loosen up a little and have a good time. Thats what modeling is all about.
Here are a few I have done!
ACY Boxcar purchased from the New Haven and Repainted in this Yellow & Red Scheme.
B&M PS1 Boxcar in as delivered scheme in the 50’s.
CGW PS1 Boxcar painted Maroon, but the yellow graphics set it off.
AAR 1944 Boxcar in as delived scheme.
Great Northern 12 Panel Boxcar.
KO&G Boxcar
M&StL Repa
Now that’s what I’m talking about. Thanks so much for posting the photos…
I must have picked the wrong prototype.[(-D]
Now, I do have a nice baby blue container car and container brake. They’re intended for 160kph speeds and have HUGE journal boxes around their forced-lubrication roller bearings.
Then there are the lime green box car and full brake van. Meant for 100kph speed.
The ‘slow’ container cars and the auto racks are an orange-red for no reason that I can determine.
Some box vans with special fittings are painted light brown. Reefer bodies are painted white.
So, what about the other ninety percent of my JNR freight roster (and one hundred percent of my TTT roster?) Black, with white reporting marks and precious little other stenciled information. TTT cars have the, “Tomi Maru,” symbol above the numbers, JNR cars have the six-kanji ownership data on the left lower corner of the frame or carbody, 100 scale millimeters high.
Passenger equipment isn’t that colorful, either. Most of it is the same color as wet red-clay mud…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Some fairly colorful cars came in to use particularly at the end of what could be called the steam era. And there was not just one red or one brown either, although Athearn Blue Box tended to suggest that by using the same color for many roadnames in their steam era line. For example some Pennsy boxcars were far more reddish than they were brown. And there were railroads such as M&StL that had vivid greens well back into the wood boxcar era. The old Silver Streak line of double sheathed boxcar kits had some colorful ones in its line. I recall a Great Northern wood boxcar that was true red, not reddish brown. Those kits dated to the 1950s when some of those cars still ran, and many modelers remembered them well in any event.
But you don’t want to overdo this. Even into the late 1960s I think of freight trains as being mostly brown boxcars, mostly black tank cars, mostly orange or yellow reefers, and so on – with exceptions. The bright colors, such as the jade green NYC cars, the yellow UP boxcarfs, and the green Great Northern boxcars with the cartoon goat really stood out to the train watcher and my friend and I would shout to each other about them as the train went by. The first red white and blue “State of Maine” car I saw (and recall that New Haven had some of those too) was a shocker, because until I saw a real one I had foolishly assumed it was just some flight of fancy of the Lionel company in their 6464 series, not knowing that in fact the 6464 series was usually pretty darn accurate.
I read once in MR that boxcars were reddish color for the same reason as barns – the reddish clays are plentiful and thus that is the cheapest possible color to add to paint, back when paints were clay based. Makes sense.
Dave Nelson
It could also depend on how set you are to a particular period and region…On the Citrus Belt it is never later then 1926…plenty of billboard reefers still in operation, but none on the CB as research indicated that they were a rarity in California with the exception of a certain Sonoma winnery that used a unique shade of purple with elaborate/colorful graphics on reefers and tank cars well into the diesel era, perhaps, someday I might become movitated add a few to the fleet.
Dave
I model the late transition period. I’d estimate my box car red rolling stock slightly out numbers the colorful cars. Without doing any scientific research and relying only on old films of railroading from that era, it seems about right. I don’t get too hung up on prototypical accuracy in this regard. I have a few NYC jade green box cars which my limited research tells me didn’t show up until steam was gone. It’s one of the benefits of being a freelancer. If you are going to create a fictional railroad, what’s the big deal about fudging on details such as this.
That was due to the fading paint…PRRs paint faded faster then most paints.
The joke in the Columbus paint shop was: “We paint with paint that is 60% thinner and 40% paint”.
Be careful what you wish for:
Although this prize is in my own collection, I saw one of them at a train show a few weeks back for $20.
Be careful what you wish for:
This prize is in my personal collection, but I saw one at a train show a few weeks back for $20. eBay prices right now range from 1 cent to $60.00.
This forum software is weird.
I model the transition era plus a few years (to justify so many steamers!) and this photo take a couple of years ago has at least 3-4 colorful box/refer cars. I model the NYC primarily and they had some colorful boxcars in that period.
-Bob
