Nostalgia & History > WP-68165 Box painted blue

WP-68165 Box painted blue,I think its a one and only at SP's yard Santa Clara Ca 9-80

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There's quite a bit of magenta visible in the ground and the clouds. Are you sure this isn't a dirty Pearlman Green car and a distorted photo? (you might take a look at the post directly above this one, of the U-boat at Portola. It looks kind of similar).

Could be blue. WP tried experimental paint schemes in the 68xxx number range - at least according to Roundhouse who put out a 4-pack of HO hi-cubes in red, green, blue and brown mid-2003.

Walt in Sausalito

No, it probably is blue. They did indeed try blue, bright orange and a few other hues. To my knowledge, they never tried Perlman Green on a freight car.

Z

Cool pic of something I never knew existed. On the subject of the Western Pacific and paint, what was the story with the paint on their signal masts? Did Al Perlman start that? Was it really New York Central Jade Green?

Tweaked the colors a bit...

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This is an interesting shot since there was at least one blue car of this type, but it wasn't the 68165. According to the documentation and photos I have seen, the 68165 was painted a dark green in February 1979. There is a color shot of it taken in September 1979 in Jim Eager's "Western Pacific Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment" and it is green in that photo. There were at least three of the same series cars painted orange in March and at least one, the 68110, painted blue in April. There were probably more of these colorful cars as well before WP settled on box car red with the Feather River Route medallion.

I would love to get a good, high resolution scan of this image to verify the color since it really does look blue in this scan.

Mike