Model Railroading > Milwaukee Road 50' Airslide

Was looking at the superb Milwaukee Road Tangent Airslide covered hoppers, which are in gray, and then remembered that there was a primitive Walther's kit from years ago, that came painted in yellow for the Milwaukee Road. So went looking for some pictures, but have been unable to locate any online photo's of yellow MILW airslides so far. A picture of the model can be found at this link:

http://burlington.seesaa.net/article/420692410.html

This leaves me wondering, does anyone happen to know if the real Milwaukee ever did repaint some of these cars in yellow? Or this scheme from the imagination of Walthers....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/16 10:40 by Bunny218.

The Milwaukee did have 42 Airslide 4180 CF cars that were painted Federal Yellow when delivered in 1974. I'm pretty sure the Morning Sun color guide has a picture of both yellow and gray cars. I will check my collection when I get home this evening.

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I saw a yellow MILW airslide on a SP westbound out of San Luis Obispo in 1980

The Morning Sun Milwaukee Color Guide does indeed have photos of yellow cars MILW 108889 and 109922 and notes that the yellow paint faded pretty quickly. Some of these cars were repainted in gray with only MILW reporting marks and sometimes a stenciled MILW herald. Here's a so-so scan of MILW 109902 in Bensenville, IL in 1985. 

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Back in the last years that the Milwaukee existed I have to say the only 50' airslides I saw were the Federal yellow painted cars never saw gray ones.
I know I purchased back in the day a special run 3 pack from a model railroad club in Iowa of gray cars, the story behind these cars was that the car
builder couldn't obtain any Federal yellow so the Milwaukee accepted them painted gray. If you read Tangent's story they said the cars came delivered
in gray. My guess is the Milwaukee must have recieved multiple orders where one order of the cars came gray and another order came in yellow. Anyone
out there know the true story behind the yellow vs gray.
Also I believe Walthers from all the runs of the Milwaukee 50' airslides only did them in Federal yellow only once and that being when they first put them out.

chitownjeff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Back in the last years that the Milwaukee existed
> I have to say the only 50' airslides I saw were
> the Federal yellow painted cars never saw gray
> ones.
> I know I purchased back in the day a special run 3
> pack from a model railroad club in Iowa of gray
> cars, the story behind these cars was that the
> car
> builder couldn't obtain any Federal yellow so the
> Milwaukee accepted them painted gray. If you read
> Tangent's story they said the cars came delivered
> in gray. My guess is the Milwaukee must have
> recieved multiple orders where one order of the
> cars came gray and another order came in yellow.
> Anyone
> out there know the true story behind the yellow vs
> gray.

Long story short?  75% of the original paint GATC 4180s were gray, not yellow.

Details:  MILW ordered 3 different orders of gray GATC 4180s in 1965, 1966, and 1968 for a total of 55 cars in the 97200 seies.  There were 2 additional orders for GATC 4180s in 1971 and 1973 for a total of 75 more cars, in gray starting in the 109925 series.  There were plenty of other covered hoppers delivered in yellow during those years from Pullman-Standard so I don't think the lack of yellow paint story holds up.  

The 6th order fo GATC 4180 airslides built 1975 came in yellow.  43 cars starting in the 109882 series.  

All of these cars were lined.  All cars were in "foodstuffs" service.  

The gray cars lasted well into the 1980s and were far more statistically relevant - in fact one of the cars we currently offer was still in service in 1987, with a high brakewheel.  Click here for a prototype image: http://www.tangentscalemodels.com/product/milwaukee-original-gray-1965-gatc-4180-airslide/

David Lehlbach
Tangent Scale Models

Thank you all for your very helpful replies! Interesting that no pictures are easily found on the internet of the yellow cars, so extra appreciate the scanned photo. Now, I just have to put in my 2-cents worth wishes that the yellow will eventually find it's way into Tangent's paint booth sometime down the road!