I have a question I hope someone will know the answer to.
When did they begin using galvanized roofs on boxcars. I would like to model peeling paint on boxcar roofs from the 50’s. I have heard roofs were galvanized by then and that paint tends to peel from these types of roofs. The problem is I never see this modeled so it makes me wonder if it’s prototypical.
Also, are there any photos of this occurrence? It seems nobody was taking photos of these things back then.
Thanks,
Alex
As I remember generally leaving the roof unpainted is about the same time that roofwalks disappeared so I would guess early 70’s.
I had the advantage of working third trick towerman at Burbank Jct on the SP and got a (lot of) chance to eyeball car roofs. This was mid to late 60s. The roofs were unpainted galvanized (usually) and they didn’t bother w/ any masking so the side and end colors got feathered onto the edges of the roof. You can model this effect by reversing the process…spray the car and for the roof spray a mix ox light grey w/ a little silver, but just go from the center to a foot or so from the edge.
Galvanized metal roofing was common for buildings by the 1920s, and they started using it on boxcars in the late 1930s. If you’re modeling the mid to late 1950s, many of your cars will have galvanized (flat) metal roofing. But check your prototype first, since every RR had their own way of doing things (some had plain sheet metal which rusted, some used asphaltum roofing tar, some used wood or canvas covered roofing, etc, etc)
Thanks guys, this helps.
Keep the replies coming if you think of anything else.
Thanks again.
Alex
Jim Rice,
Were the boxcars you witnessed that had unpainted roofs built in the 60’s or did they date back to earlier times?
BTW, I live in Burbank and have lived here all my life. Unfortunately I was born after Burbank tower was torn down but I have memories of the SP during the late 70’s and 80’s.
Thanks,
Alex
In the modelling forum there have been threads on the 70s and 80s… would you tell us the things you recall that stand out… PLEASE 
The majority of cars in the mid to late sixties would most likely have been post-1950 and the newer cars would have been built w/o roof walks. The parenthetical "usually"would indicate that not all cars had unpainted roofs. I looked it up in my “Painting And Lettering Guide For Model Railroaders” by the Santa Fe Hist Soc and the Santa Fe painted the roofs on their frt cars black. There were most likely many others, but most were unpainted
I was pretty young in the 70’s (1 to 10 years old) but I do remember seeing pinstripe Santa Fe geeps when we used to visit my grandparents who lived in Huntington Park (near Vernon). I loved all the railroad crossings down Soto St through Vernon, it seemed there were a couple of crossings on every block in this industrial area. The tracks are still there, and I’m assuming there is still activity in those parts today. I remember there was a warehouse near my grandparents apartment that always had Santa Fe trailers backed up to it. I’m not sure if that was some sort of tranfer point for loads that were coming in or being sent out.
Sometime in the mid-eighties my dad took me to Taylor yard. There was a pedestrian bridge that went over several lines of trackage to an SP tower there. The tower operator saw us and actually invited us into the tower. I was already hooked on trains at the time so this was great. There were lines of older boxcars and some of them actually still had roofwalks on them. The activity in the yard was really exciting, with slow moving trains snaking their way through. I remember seeing some photos I took that day, I will have to dig them up one of these days. It amazes me how much more accessible railfanning seemed to be back then.
Alex