Which railroad web sites have good color photos of WWII era frieght cars?

[Anonymous]

I need some good color photographs of Pacific Fruit Express R-40-23 reefers so I can decorate an Intermountain model. Are there any web sites out there where I can find some good reefer pictures? I tried ussing Google but I couldn't find anything usefull.

[Anonymous]

You could try http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/ but as to whether you'll get colour photos, and how accurate the colours will be is another question.

Good luck!

Andrew

[CNJ831]

You may be in for a long, tough search. To a greater or lesser extent, rail-fan photography was frowned on during WWII, the same as since 9/11. But in the 1940's it was the military doing a much more diligent job of policing. Likewise, color film was not yet in wide usage at the time. I recall the excitement a few years back when, I think it was, Mainline Modeler published a couple of color photos of a car-filled WWII rail yard - something very few modelers claimed to have eve seen.

CNJ831

[Hudsonmike]

Ask the NMRA library or any historical society can give you great photos
Mike

[orsonroy]

www.steamfreightcars.com

This is a proto freight car modeling site, but they have over 100 proto photos on site as well. They may have what you're looking for.

http://railroad.union.rpi.edu/

This is the NEB&W's freight car database. It's a pay site ($5 a month) but it's THE best site online for proto freight car data. This site runs into the thousands of pages, and is the first place I look when I need a question on steam-era freight cars answered.

www.loc.gov

This is the main page to the Library of Congress' online database. Do a search (in several ways) for PFE and something might come up. I just mined it for Illinois Central photos and came up with dozens of color photos of Chicago RR yards in 1942.

[Anonymous]

Orsonroy:

Thank you for your response to Scott218. I am always trying to find new sources of information on railroad cars up to and including 1942. The sites you list fill in many blanks in my data file. Color photos! Yes!

Tom