Freight car colors - black or boxcar red?
#1
Modern freight cars come in a variety of colors -

But between 1900~1930 it seemed most cars were either boxcar red or black. Well, at least I *think* they were - afterall the photographs are B&W.

Was there a rule to what colors cars were painted? It seems like boxcars were primarily red, while other cars were black. Would it be entirely unusual to have a black wood boxcar during this era?
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Kevin
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#2
Yes... Wink

Most boxcars were boxcar red, or some similar oxide colour. Then (I think) depending on the road, you could get gons in red or black, hoppers in red or black, and flats in red or black. Reefers were often yellow and may or may not have had advertising. Express cars (boxes, reefers) were painted to match the passenger equipment and equipped with high speed trucks. Roofs were given more attention in those days too.

Doc Wayne has been an excellent source of information, so look for his posts. I also use Ian Wilson's Steam... series - at least for southern Ontario practices on the CNR. You may be able to find some colour photos that date back to the 1930s, but they'd be rare. I always thought it'd be fun to build a black and white layout... Wink


Andrew
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#3
Most boxcars were some shade of a red oxide, but there were other colors, grey's, yellows, greens.

If you go back before 1900, boxcars in line service were often painted the color of the line, so Blue Line cars were blue, Red Line were red and White line were white.
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#4
I have saved a couple of these red/blue/white line cars and these would be a great eye catcher in such an old time train, I think. But this was also the time a bit before 1900, I think 1880 to 1890 and here my question. Who modeled his trains in such an early time. Also my 1900 modelling goes more to 1910 until 1920 and with this - these models are too old for me.
But I have started a six car batch of 1880 era a longer time ago. Maybe there will be generated some cars of these "color line"?
Cheers, Bernd

Please visit also my website www.us-modelsof1900.de.
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#5
As Dave mentions, pre-1900 cars came in various colours, and passenger cars could have been quite ornately decorated. The Great Western, based in my hometown of Hamilton Ontario, had passenger cars of natural (uncoloured) wood, highly varnished, then adorned with scrollwork, pinstriping, and ornate lettering. I suspect that economics put an end to much of that. Likewise, most freight equipment became some form of boxcar red. Based on iron oxide, the paint was both cheap and durable. The colour varied from brown to different shades of orange and red.
Black for open cars may have been because many, especially hoppers and gondolas, were used for carrying coal and would be less likely to show the dust associated with its handling.
Also, black was often used on metal hardware on freight cars - this eventually ended on most cars painted with iron oxide-based paints, but continued for many years on cars like reefers. This included grab irons, ladders, re-enforcing plates, door hardware, and exposed metal sidesills.
Car ends and roofs were often painted black, too, especially when metal roofs and ends were used on wooden cars. This faded out for some time, but later came back in vogue when black roofing cement came into use - early metal roofs, while an improvement over the wooden ones, grew more and more prone to leakage as the cars aged. The ends, always vulnerable to shifting lading, often leaked as well.
The only older black house cars which come to mind are some stock cars on....perhaps on the D&RGW? I'm not sure of their applicable era, either - it may have been later than your modelling period. Later, N&W had black boxcars.

Pretty-well all of my home road cars, both open and closed, are boxcar red. I generally use a mixture of commercially-available colours, so a batch of similar cars painted at the same time will be the same colour. This may be different from other home road cars and even different from similar cars done at a different time. In few instances do I use a colour as it comes, straight from the bottle. Weathering will add some subtle difference to each car, and I may use up to 5 or 10 different shades or combinations when weathering.
When painting cars for other roads, I try to vary the colours, especially if the cars are from various roads but being painted all at the same time. For instance, the first car may be done with Floquil's Boxcar Red, the next the same but with some orange added, the next with some black, etc., etc. A train of boxcar red cars, unless they're brand new and from the same road, is not a homogeneous string of colour when passing. Wink Goldth

Wayne
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#6
Thanks for the replies, everyone.

And Wayne - those Rio Grande stock cars are what I was thinking of when I asked this question. They are about the only non-red freight cars that I can think of from that era that arent reefer, hopper, or tank cars.
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