Nostalgia & History > SP Passenger cars

For those fortunate enough to have traveled in them "back in the day", anyone remember what color(s) SP used for the interiors? (walls, seat cushions, etc...)

Thanks

DD

DieselDoc Wrote:
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> For those fortunate enough to have traveled in
> them "back in the day", anyone remember what
> color(s) SP used for the interiors? (walls, seat
> cushions, etc...)

I'm sure lots of folks will be able to give you better answers than I, but I remember the interiors being variously painted in pastel shades of yellow, or green, or blue, or (I think) sort of a salmon.

Richard K. Wright's Daylight book has a chapter on interiors, including colors, for the Daylight cars. There were five color schemes: apricot (I think that's we remember as "salmon"), blue, gray, green and yellow. All six coaches ordered in 1954 had the apricot scheme. Before that all five were seen but only 8 cars out of 86 had the grey.

Each scheme had four colors in the main section and two other colors (reused from a different scheme) in the restrooms. For example, the "apricot scheme" had cream headlining, apricot-light walls, apricot-dark pier panels (between windows), and cinnamon brown vestibule. "Apricot" cars had "green scheme" restrooms: sea foam green headlining, lime green walls and palm green base.

Five schemes times four colors meant 20 different colors. The green scheme headlining was "sea foam green," which was also the interior color for all locomotive cabs and baggage cars.

The SP Historical Society's book "Southern Pacific Passenger Cars" Volume 1 doesn't have much to say about interior colors, but does have a few color pictures.

Additions:
1. Forgot to mention that Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Berkeley, CA has a used copy of Richard K. Wright's book. Don't remember how much they want for it. The original price of the first printing was $30.
2. IIRC, the commute coaches had cream ceiling and walls, and very dark green seat covers.

The book "Southern Pacific Official Color Photography Vol. 1," by Tony Thompson, has many color photos of car interiors of the Shasta Daylight and the Cascade.

One thing that has always disappointed me is the lack of color pictures of interiors of passenger cars from the 1950's / 60's, no matter what the railroad. There seem to be a lot of exterior pictures (which makes sense since railfan photographers were readily able to get that angle), but most interior shots are in B&W. My interest centers more around the CB&Q, NP and GN, but I found the answers to the SP colors interesting as well. I think I remember seeing that "Salmon" color on the interiors of Slumbercoaches and some of the CB&Q cars.

The Southern Pacific Daylight book, more then likely out of print by now, has all that information in it. A big book, about 3 inches thick. It was written by Richard K Wright.

Also see the artist color renditions (and accompanying captions) of the interiors of the cars used on the original 1937 Coast Daylight found on pgs. 42-43 of Nils Huxtable's "Daylight Reflections, Vol. One," plus the color photos of the interiors of the 1939-built Daylight cars found on pgs. 74-76 of the same book.

In heavyweight, my recall is that pretty much everything was either "institution" green or cream, thee may have been a tan color as well. AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

Perhaps this will be of some help.

A couple of interior photos and one exterior photo of SP Lounge 2986. Photos were taken in July, 2006 at the Durham Western Heritage Museum in Omaha, NE.

up421

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