I model the late 1940’s and am considering building (or converting my older cars into) MOW equipment. What were the color schemes then for MOW cars (including retired passenger cars), old steam tenders, etc.? I have the impression every road had their own particular schemes. Was boxcar red used? Thanks in advance for any advice on this.
Grey, silver, pale green, freight car color, yellow, black.
It is railroad and era dependent. In the 1940s, Southern Pacific’s MOW cars were painted an oxide red (boxcar red in my eyes), same as its revenue freight cars.
This is a contemporary picture of two SP MOW cars (the partially-viewed car is completely rust-covered), now UP-owned.
Mark
As Mark stated it is railroad, era and even division or area dependent. In the forties I lived the small town of , in , said to be named for the SP section foreman’s dog. The section gang lived in converted box cars painted silver. Supply cars that moved in and out were often box car red. Actually the only way to tell MOW cars were the reporting marks “SPMWxxxxx.” One of note of interest on SP MOW cars was signage like “Don’t sleep under the cars” or “Water not potable” in both English and Spanish.
I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the fifties, there the WP MOW equip was painted yellow or orange.
Have fun, Rob
Often MOW equipment was downgraded because it may no longer be able to meet interchange requirements. Thnigs such as archbar trucks or brake systems were obsoleted forcing a car from regular service. The most important reason for the color is so it was obvious that it shouldn’t wind up as an interchange car. Could red oxide be used? Sure as long as your other cars are some other obviously different color.
True.
Not true. Work cars are mostly likely identified by numbering, and older downgraded cars may not have any visual distinction other than the number. One thing you’ll notice about MOW repaints is they tend to be very plain, simple, low-cost paint jobs.
MOW equipment doesn’t have to be a specific colour. On many roads it could very well be older passenger or freight equipment that simply has patches and new numbers or markings and suitable modifications done to it without actually repainting the whole thing and thus could be in almost any variation of freight or passenger lettering, or custom lettering for work service, or even lettering for another road if they picked up some old secondhand equipment and patched and modified it for work service. Anything that does get fully repainted could be wildly varying based on the road, era, type of car or service, or even the particular shop or crew that repainted it.
Usually roads have a specific numbering series or system for non-revenue equipment. For example separate reporting marks like SPMW, prefixing the number with an “X” or numbering them all in a specific range (eg. on CN it’s anything with a 5-digit number, on CP it’s anything in the 4xxxxx range, on the C&O/Chessie it was 9xxxxx, on the Algoma Central, the road I’m modelling, it was the 10xxx series). Additionally these cars might have markings indicating “Service” or “MW” or “RSE” (Reserved Service Equipment
Nothing requires the MofW cars to be painted a different color. The RDG and MP’s cars were painted the same color as the regular freight cars. Many railroads did paint them a different color, but not all. Since MofW cars are almost by definition non-standard cars, there is no indistry wide standard of how they were painted or lettered. It varied by era and by railroad.
If somebody wants to paint the freight car color, its fine. If they want to paint them silver, its fine. If they want a mix of colors, that happened too. If somebody is modeling a particular railroad then follow their pattern. If someone is freelancing then its a matter of how much trouble they want to go to. If they are using custom decals and have white decals then they might want to use a dark color (dark grey/black/red/freight car color) but if they have black decals they may want to use a light color (yellow/orange/lt gey/grey/aluminum/lt green).
As Dave said, MOW colors often varied over time on the same railroad. On the Santa Fe, these cars were Mineral Brown (the Santa Fe’s boxcar red) just like the freight cars until about 1930. Then the railroad began using a battleship gray instead, and for the next 20 years there were more and more gray MOW cars and fewer and fewer in Mineral Brown. About 1955 aluminum (silver) paint began replacing the battleship gray, and that transition took until about 1970. All along, steam-powered wreck cranes were typically painted black, sometimes with gray or aluminum booms or hooks and other highlights. Some special equipment got quite non-standard paint schemes, for example some pile-driver outfits that were painted blue like the freight diesels and decorated with yellow stripes.
So long,
Andy
Yellow, because of its visibility, has long been a favorite color for speeders and other track-working machinery.