Santa Fe blue lettering hopper scheme

[fr8kar]

In the late 70s, Santa Fe picked up some Pullman Standard 4750cf covered hoppers in a light gray scheme with large Santa Fe lettering in blue. This group of cars stood out quite a bit compared to the typical red oxide paint with white lettering.

Does anyone know what the significance of the different paint scheme was, if anything? Were these cars mixed freely with the rest of the red oxide cars or were they segregated?

[Deleted]

These cars were not owned by Santa Fe, they were leased from North American Car. Maybe the scheme was the consequence of this fact ? I've seen photos showing them amongst other Sante Fe covered hoppers in the typical scheme(s).

Pierre BARBE

[runs2waynoka]

I recall reading somewhere that they were acquired for perlite service out of New Mexico, not general grain service, but I think I've seen picture of one of them, maybe in the recent ATSF grain book, of one of them on the Jetmore branch in KS. So likely that they got diverted to other uses like potash and grain if needed, as the old timers say that Santa Fe would have a chronic shortage of hoppers during wheat harvest and would even lease hoppers from CR and ICG...

[fr8kar]

Thanks for the info, Pierre and Brad. I have been thinking about getting the three-car set Accurail did but I think maybe I'd be better off just going with the oxide red cars instead. I don't need enough of them to justify having three gray cars out of twelve total.

[Deleted]

Long time ago, I built one of these cars (Intermountain 4750 undecorated and Microscale decals). Even if it isn't a state-of-the-art 4750 like the last Tangent's cars, I like it because it's a really elegant livery, more than the oxide red cars (personal and subjective opinion, of course !).
If Tangent releases them one of these days, I will certainly buy some. Unfortunately, there was only 100 cars IIRC. Not sure that 3 or 4 of them in one grain train would be very realistic, as you said.

Pierre BARBE