Model Railroading > How many feasible liveries for passenger trains?

I’m freelance modeling the late 1940s. My railroad is totally made up, but the more feasible it is the better. I have a standard pullman green feet of coaches for my regular passenger trains, two tone blue for my single limited (with a blue painted pacific to match), and I had thought about painting older wooden coaches more of a dark red for local and commuter service. Does this sound logical?

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steam290 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I’m freelance modeling the late 1940s. My
> railroad is totally made up, but the more feasible
> it is the better. I have a standard pullman green
> feet of coaches for my regular passenger trains,
> two tone blue for my single limited (with a blue
> painted pacific to match), and I had thought about
> painting older wooden coaches more of a dark red
> for local and commuter service. Does this sound
> logical?
>
> Posted from iPhone

Pullman Green was pretty universal back then. Any other color was an exception.

Well, the Wabash had blue, heavyweight passengers cars but the "assigned" Pullmans were painted blue to match, from what I have been told. (And a small group of its Pacifics were painted blue as were later Hudsons.)***

Oxide red or maroon was a color used on some roads in the days of wooden cars and some roads continued that practice like the Boston & Maine, for example. I suppose I would paint all my passenger cars to match except those in work train service which could be oxide red, MOW yellow or even gray. You could vary the lettering, however, with the older style more fancy than the newer style.

Never say never, but I wouldn't think a road would go to the trouble of using different colors for different trains unless they were making a transition from one color to another and older cars hadn't yet been repainted or will be retired before that happens. From what I understand, the Lake Shore had some cars in their famous fast mail train painted a white, IIRC, but this is probably long before your era. But I agree that a green was a common color both in the old days and into the 20th century for wood and steel cars.

(Now watch: someone is going to post the old adage, "It's your model railroad, and you can do whatever you want". <G> But you asked what would be prototypical.)

***Contrary to what some model railroaders and toy train manufacturers may have us think, not all of the Wabash J class Pacifics were painted blue.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/21 13:57 by wabash2800.

I like what you wrote. It definitely helps! I do know the Southern painted the Crescent two tone green in the 20s, so that is one example of a railroad going through the trouble of doing specific paint schemes for different trains. Therefore, I have dark green for standard passenger and two tone blue for my limited. I guess when it comes to wood cars, I’ll just go with green unless they are work train cars. I only wanted to do the wood cars red because of how striking they’d look and I liked how George Sellios did his wood cars red. I do get the old adage about “it’s my railroad”, but I also want “my railroad” to be as feasible as possible. I love fantasy, but I also like realism. I’d love to hear from more folks too. Thanks for helping me decide.

wabash2800 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well, the Wabash had blue, heavyweight passengers
> cars but the "assigned" Pullmans were painted blue
> to match, from what I have been told. (And a small
> group of its Pacifics were painted blue as were
> later Hudsons.)***
>
> Oxide red or maroon was a color used on some roads
> in the days of wooden cars and some roads
> continued that practice like the Boston & Maine,
> for example. I suppose I would paint all my
> passenger cars to match except those in work train
> service which could be oxide red, MOW yellow or
> even gray. You could vary the lettering, however,
> with the older style more fancy than the newer
> style.
>
> Never say never, but I wouldn't think a road would
> go to the trouble of using different colors for
> different trains unless they were making a
> transition from one color to another and older
> cars hadn't yet been repainted or will be retired
> before that happens. From what I understand, the
> Lake Shore had some cars in their famous fast mail
> train painted a white, IIRC, but this is probably
> long before your era. But I agree that a green was
> a common color both in the old days and into the
> 20th century for wood and steel cars.
>
> (Now watch: someone is going to post the old
> adage, "It's your model railroad, and you can do
> whatever you want". But you asked what would be
> prototypical.)
>
> ***Contrary to what some model railroaders and toy
> train manufacturers may have us think, not all of
> the Wabash J class Pacifics were painted blue.
>
> Victor A. Baird
> http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

Posted from iPhone

In the late 30, 40s and early 50s the B&O name trains were painted in the classic blue and grey scheme, but passenger cars for the local services were all blue.  Starting in mid-50s B&O standardized everything on the blue and grey.

Well, there were also the B&O Pacifics painted dark green, later painted royal blue. Seems to me there were a lot of variations of pant schemes over the years.

Posted from iPhone