PRR Boxcar painting question

[fishbelly]

This should be a quick one.

Looking at what photos I can find of PRR boxcars, it appears to me that the entire car, roof, sides, ends and underframe are painted brown. The trucks are painted black.

Is that correct?

[markfj]

This X44 car looks to be a fresh repaint in the late scheme and has either black or unpainted trucks. A quick check of the PRR Compendium shows on some drawings a painting schedule that reads: Trucks – Paint with one coat of hard-drying enamel (on new cars only) color: black.


I seem to recall reading that an FRA regulation kicked in at some point and the practice of painting trucks was dropped. Someone with deeper knowledge should comment to that point though.
Thanks, Mark

[TBird1958]

PC colors but obviously PRR on this X58, black trucks and a silver roof on this particular car, but no doubt that plenty of other classes were all brown with black trucks.

[Deleted]

NO this is NOT an easy question.

I'm going to ask you what era, by years, and what lettering style you are using on a PRR boxcar?  Is it new or a repaint?

In the 1960's, circa 1962 or 1963 to the end, PRR DID adopt a dark brown paint scheme, at least for repaints and some new cars.

Prior to that, during the 1950's, if I recall correctly, even the freight cars were painted Tuscan Red--which is a dark burgundy red color, and definitely NOT a brown.  Prior to the 1950's some cars may have been freight car red.  If you really want to get the car "correct" you may have to do a little research and/or follow the painting guides supplied with various decal sets.

The paint colors, lettering fonts and dates are discussed in more detail on Tangent Scale Models website (or were on the website) as they related to painting of PRR mill gondolas.  Fun fact:  PRR had single classes of mill gondolas that outnumbered the entire freight car fleets of many other railroads.

[dti406]

Pennsy freight cars were not supposed to be painted Tuscan red but never say never when it comes to painting.

The recommended colors for 50’s is Floquil Polyscale Zinc Chromate primer and the 60’s is Floquil Oxide Red. Follow Microscale’s conversion to match these discontinued paints.

I have had good luck with Scalecoats PRR boxcar Redon my models.

Rick Jesionowski

[stevewagner]

I believe that the PRR itself called the reddish paint it used on boxcars and some other types for years "freight car color". I've never thought of it as brown. It was lighter and brighter than what many other railroads used. To my eyes, many B&O cars in the Fifties and Sixties had a similar color. True Pennsy experts can correct this as they wish.

In recent years Atlas has called quite a few of its freight car models "brown" though many of us would consider them "red" of one sort or another. For real browns, consider some of Athearn's relatively early polystyrene boxcars in the Fifties and Sixties. Some of its first 40' AAR 1937 boxcars, as many of us learned to think of them later, were decidedly dark brown, e.g. the Lackawanna Phoebe Snow car and a CB&Q one with Everywhere West on one side and Way of the Zephyrs on the other. About 1965 or 1966 the firm's first D&H car of that type -- I didn't know then that the D&H didn't have any of those -- was a very dark and very shiny brown. I wrote Irv Athearn saying even the light brown his firm used on most of its steam era Santa Fe boxcars would be preferable. That was the color on the D&H car in the next run. When AHM reissued its first D&H 40' PS-1 boxcar, issued ca. 1960 or 1961, to a nice oxide red I wrote Mr. Athearn again saying that color was good, and Athearn matched it. I'm not saying he did it because of my urging; others may have done the same. (Those AHM car had other real problems: its door was wrong, and the lettering, including the car number, was that of a D&H 50-foot PS-1 squeezed onto a 40' car! I know I've written about this for the BLHS Bulletin quite a while back; I hope I haven't already done so on this forum! If I have, I apologize.)

[markfj]

Pennsy FCC is the rabbit hole of all rabbit holes in regards to model railroad discussions. I think only the Penn Central “black or not” debate comes close to generating more comments.

Anyways, here is a copy of the paint schedule I reference earlier.




Also check out this article from Railmodel Journal written in 1990. It gives a pretty clear breakdown of paint colors and the eras when they were applied.



Thanks, Mark

[fishbelly]

A bit more than I anticipated. I was asking because I have some Accurail PRR cars and needed to know if I should paint the underframe the same color as the car or black. Same for trucks. Appears trucks were black or looked black at least and from the photos I am seeing, the underframe was the same color as the car body.

[stevewagner]

Mark, thanks very much for your post. I'm going to print and save this thread.