I will be painting various 1950's era boxcars and I have a wide range of Polly Scale paints I would be able to use. I will be painting:
NYC
PRR
B&O
NKP
Does anyone know of a site with info for these paint formulas, or could share your formulas. Thanks for all the help in advance.
-Alex Warshal
My Layout Photos- http://s1293.photobucket.com/user/ajwarshal/library/
Can't help with specifics other than try to get color pics and match the paint by eye. That's not a perfect solution, since images can have problems getting reproduction right sometimes.
I assume your're talking about Tuscan or boxcar brown? Some roads were very specific about the formula for their version, while others felt purchasing commerical products was close enough. Then sun- and weather-fading start taking their toll as soon as a car left the shop. The pigments used in these paints were some of the more stable and cheap, that's why they were chosen, but paints back in the day were still nowhere as long-lasting as they are now.
Thus, my suggestion to match the paint to pics as a general rule. I'm sure there will also be some specific recommendations, too.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Thanks Mike. I found an awesome site about the PRR colors.
It is: http://pennsyrr.com/index.php/non-revenue/86-modeling/172-paints
One down, three to go!
Tuscan red by the way was not used on Pennsy fright cars, only passenger cars. "Freight car color" was used on freight cars. The colors also varied by time. Pennsy cars were more of an orange red back in the late 1800's, early 1900's.
Its not uncommon to find several cars of the same road in a picture and there are 2 or 3 shades of the "same" color.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
While it's in the 40s and there's a war on, these photos show various box car reds.
http://www.shorpy.com/node/6969
http://www.shorpy.com/node/893
Cheers, the Bear.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
One thing I have noticed is that 'Box Car Red' started out as a 'reddish-orange' color and changed to a darker brown by the mid 50's. Early paint jobs many times used a home-brew of clay pigments/linseed oil either by the railroad or by the paint suppliers. As better enamel and lacquer paints were produced, the darker hues seem to take over. SOO and NP box cars painted in the late 50's seemed to use this darker hue. The MILW 'Oxide Red' appeared to have a lot of 'red' in it. The ATSF 'Mineral Red' always seemed to be rather flat(even new paint jobs).
Back in the 70's, I used a lot of Floquil 'Tuscan' and 'Box Car Red' for freight cars. I still use a lot of PollyScale 'Freight Car Red' and 'Special Oxide Red'.
Fading of paint jobs on freight cars is something else to consider. Just follow pictures, you cannot go wrong.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
As I recall (that's trouble starting right off the bat) , the Pennsy cars were a lighter version of "boxcar red" with a distinct orangish cast to them:
While I don't have many factory-painted cars on my layout, here's a Pennsy GLa hopper for comparison, pretty-much as I got it from Bowser:
...and I think that B&O cars were a fairly similar shade...
...while NYC cars tended to look darker, with a somewhat brownish appearance:
...and the Nickel Plate's cars somewhat similar:
Bear in mind that I don't specifically model any of those roads, and layout lighting, camera capabilities, and old guy's recollections all play a part in what you see. Using various versions of "boxcar red" should help to make your rolling stock look more plausible. When doing large batches of freight cars, I start with what I feel is suitable for a particular road, and after that road's cars are done, I simply alter the colour in the airbrush's bottle by adding other colours to it. This also works for cars from the same road which were built at different times or which you plan to weather differently. Naturally, weathering will affect the appearance of the chosen colour, too. The locations a car visits (or in which it sees most of its service) may play a large part in its appearance, while a car from the same lot seeing much of its service on a different part of the system might look quite different.
Wayne
Thank you all for the info. I found a great list on protocraft.com
They have the recommended paint colors on their decal pages.
PRR freight car color: Scalecoat Oxide Red
B&O and W.M. boxcars of the 1950's: Floquil Zinc Chromate Primer BEFORE they changed the hue many years ago (it's very hard to find).
NYC freight cars: Similar to PRR, but not an exact match.
NKP boxcars: Not sure. May have been several different shades.
This comes from a variety of sources. I don't trust my own color vision.
Railway Prototype Cyclopedia No. 3 has a very good rundown, but it was originally published in 1999, and the model paints they mention are not in production any more.
If you bring up the question at an RPM meet, you're bound to get into an argument that lasts into the wee hours. Bring dueling pistols.
Tom