I am just curious as I keep building car kits - are prototype trucks for freight and other cars EVER other than black in color? I am getting a fair number of kits with red trucks. Is that prototype; for example, ACY 40’ Mather freight car?
Cheers, Jake
[%-)]
I have read of certain Santa Fe freight car classes with the information that when new, entire car was painted mineral brown (ATSF equivalent of “boxcar red”) INCLUDING the trucks. Don’t imagine they stayed that way long.
I have often seen freight car trucks with a rust red cast to them, or a slight yellow-ochre cast to the basic black.
On passenger equipment of Santa Fe luxury trains, I have heard of touching up the silver paint on the trucks BEFORE EVERY RUN. But you did say “freight”…
Yes I believe several railroads painted the trucks boxcar red (or their version of it), it actually was pretty common in steam days.
On the Great Northern Railway, truck color was somewhat keyed to the individual paint scheme. For example, mineral red cars had usually basic black (and grunge) trucks, vermillion (bright red) cars had mineral red painted trucks, Glacier Green cars had black trucks as did Big Sky Blue equipment. On occasion, one could find cars with trucks having overspray of the body color. Passenger equipment was generally black trucks-except for the Passenger F fleet, which during the 1952-1962 era, had aluminum painted running gear, including trucks and fuel tanks. Photos do exist showing the occasional passenger car painted with aluminum trucks, but this was unusual. I’m sure other roads had their own policies as well.
Actually “leighgant” had it backwards. When the Santa Fe received new freight cars from the builders, the trucks were usually black, because they were painted separately from the carbodies. When the railroad repainted freight cars, other than refrigerator and tank cars, it painted the trucks the Mineral Brown ("boxcar red’) body color. So new cars such as boxcars, stockcars, gondolas, and flatcars had black trucks, but after they’d been through their first repainting the trucks matched the body color.
Reefers were treated differently, and their trucks (along with underbodies, ends, and roofs) were always painted black. Tank cars were all black, including the trucks, except for special commodity striping.
Weathering of trucks is another matter, and color films from the 1940s and 1950s show that the most common look for trucks in Santa Fe freight trains was an overall rust color similar to Floquil Rail Brown. But that doesn’t mean that they were painted that color, or left unpainted. It was the effect that road grime, sand, brakeshoe dust, and everything else they were exposed to had on the painted finishes.
So long,
Andy
I work for a major railcar mfr(Trinity Industries) and I can tell you from visiting all of our railcar plants, that the new cars are delivered with black sideframes and bolsters. The mfr paints the castings before they come out of the foundry. Wheelsets are NEVER painted so that cracks and other defects are spotted easyier. The paint is usually gloss black when new, but quickly fades to a flat black.
The UP was probably the one railroad that repainted almost every freight car truck in aluminum color right up into the 70’s, as they did their engines and cabooses. It was a sight to see in the late sixties when the UP was running the “Farmer John” trains into LA with three or four Geeps and 50 stock cars, all with aluminum painted trucks. The UP was a great railroad then - it’s just a big railroad now. [V]
I have vague recollections that someone, perhaps Gloor Craft, offered standard freight car trucks in HO in an aluminum color. Now I understand why! They were metal trucks with springs, again if I recall correctly. I think Gloor Craft is long gone as a model manufacturer, but I am happy to stand corrected on that.
And the classic old Lindberg trucks could be had in black or mineral brown/red.
I might add to this that Bucyrus Erie’s main plant in South Milwaukee WI used and still uses obsolete old flat cars for inter-plant movements, and often the flatcars serve as painting platforms. All sorts of colors spill onto the cars including the trucks. I am pretty sure they still have at least one flat car with arch bar trucks. Most of their trucks were mineral brown/red and they picked up relatively little road grime because they rarely moved faster than 5 mph.
Dave Nelson