I have seen the BN repainted small scale test car image on Railpictures.net, where the car us painted a bright yellow, but have not been able to locate any info on what color the original- as a Great Northern car- was painted in the 1950s. Does anybody know about this? Cedarwoodron
Seems to me I’ve seen a picture. Try the GN historical Society site first. If not maybe someone can post the book that it is in.
There’s color pictures of X845 and X846 on page 96 of “Great Northern Equipment Color Pictorial-Book Three” by Scott R. Thompson.
The one on the left (X845) looks to me to be either black or the grey that GN used in their Big Sky Blue scheme. The scheme feels more recent than the other.
The one on the right will be more appropriate to your interests. It’s painted some sort of mineral (boxcar) red and it’s got the “standard” GN herald rather than the Big Sky Blue herald. So it had to have been painted earlier than 1967. The photo is dated April 1971. The car was re-weighed some time after the mineral red paint, as it’s done with a white on black patch. My first guess is that the car was mineral red in the '50’s.
The ointment on the very large fly is that the background of the herald is black. It’s POSSIBLE that the car was black in the '50’s when the herald was applied, but was repainted mineral red except for the herald. Possible.
Sorry I can’t give you a better answer, but ya gotta start somewhere.
I would recommend joining the GN Yahoo group and asking there–there’s people there who know things. And, for that matter, people who don’t. But let’s not dwell on that.
Ed
I’ll take that mineral red for a best guess, based on your reply. I have white GN goat heralds and data text for the pre-Big Sky Blue era, and mineral red is an easy paint job. That sounds more “faithful” to the GN colors than the yellow paint that the BN merger era scale car was painted. Thanks for your assistance? Cedarwoodron
Not sure about the GN. But I did run across a form for the PRR scale test cars. They were to be painted black so dirt and snow could be easily seen and removed. No one shall paint or mark the car for any reason without authority from the master scale superintendent. Every quarter the car is to be returned to Altoona for re-weigh on the master scale. Towed in the train just before the cabin (Caboose) with the train line connected directly to the cabin car. The test cars did not have train brakes but did have a hand brake.
This instruction is from a rule book dated in the early 1920s. They were strict when it come to the test cars. Scratches in the paint would place it out of service until it was re-weighed on the master scale.
Pete