Baltimore & Ohio's "Freight Car Red"

[OT Dean]

   The B&O used a "redder" boxcar red for their equipment from the earliest years until the wild and colorful "Billboard" craze of the 1950s--when all bets were off.  Mel Thornburgh, who wrote for Model Railroader practically from its inception, called this color "Indian Red," which used to be a standard color.  It was a slightly brownish shade of caboose red or a more reddish shade of boxcar red.

  I've been a model railroader for 60 years, graduating from "playing" with my American Flyer S gauge equipment to building a model railroad and "running" trains about the same time my eldest brother came back from the Air Force after the Korean War.  We were both born in a house that felt the passage of trains on the old double track main line of the Milwaukee Road and after we moved (I was still a baby) into town, we could see the passing trains from our front yard--so I guess railroads were in our blood.

   I started freelancing a model railroad based on the B&O of 1904 back in the '70s, so I collected books on "America's First Class One Railroad" and joined the B&O Historical Society (guys, this is always a good idea!).  From Thornburgh's loco-building articles, I knew the B&O used Indian red on cab roofs, but the B&OHS's newsletter ran a discussion not unlike this forum debating the practice.  It turns out it varied from division to division--and someone pointed out that Floquil's "DH10 Caboose Red" was identical!  The Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen had run a contest, via MR, for building a model of the Delaware & Hudson caboose #10, where the the Bortherhood was formed, and Floquil mixed the correct color for this little bobber.

   Unfortunately, they never translated it into acrylic and the color was dropped from the line, anyway.  I'm an apartment dweller, building O scale equipment suitable for railroadin' in 1912, and I'm currently working on a quartet of 34' boxcars, one of them a spiffy B&O car of 1898 with chevron-shaped tongue and groove ends, so I need this color!  Imagine my surprise when I checked with art supply dealers, looking for acrylic Indian red--and found it's no longer called that.  Who'da thunk it!

   Is there anyone out there who can help me discover the new name for Indian red?

Deano

[zstripe]

OT Dean,

To The Forums.

Does this Indian Red, look at all like the color? Click on link:

http://colors.findthedata.com/l/693/Indian-Red

Take Care! 

Frank

[ACY Tom]

I know of at least 3 reds used by B&O.

"Devil's red" was a bright red used on cabooses and some M-W equipment.

Boxcars were painted some version of "boxcar red" until some time in the 1940's.  I can't describe the shade.

Around the late 1940's or early 1950's, B&O changed their boxcar color to something that was almost identical to Floquil Zinc Oxide Primer.  WM used a similar color, and so did UP.  Several years ago Floquil modified their product so that the Zinc Oxide Primer was no longer such a good match.  Now, of course, Floquil is gone.

The foregoing is collected info from several B&O fans.  I personally have a color vision deficiency, so I have to rely on others.

Many years ago, I talked to a fellow who worked for the B&O in Ohio in the 1950's.  I asked about red cab roofs and he said he had personally put boxcar paint onto the roof of at least one B&O Consolidation in the 1950's.  However, B&O system standards make no mention of red cab roofs, so this was a regional thing.

Tom

[doctorwayne]

to the forums, Dean. 

I'm not modelling the B&O, but have a couple of B&O cars on my late-'30s layout.  I attempted to paint them in the colour I recall seeing on them in the '50s, but trying to recall that memory and the exact colour was too taxing.   I used Floquil paint, probably their Boxcar Red, but with a fair bit of Caboose Red dumped in with it.  May or may not be close for either the '50s or '30s, but I'm not painting them again.

zstripe

Does this Indian Red, look at all like the color? Click on link: http://colors.findthedata.com/l/693/Indian-Red

Looks like a well-tanned salmon to me, Frank. 

You can still find Indian Red in the art supply stores around here, and it is pretty-much a boxcar-ish colour.

Wayne

[OT Dean]

Thanks, Frank, I remember it a bit darker, but that could just be my imagination, particularly if the mfrs say this is Indian red.  I spotted a second listing for Floquil caboose red in that Micro-Scale Industries substitution chart someone thoughtfully posted and, although that's all it said, the Floquil part number, #110088, looks awfully familiar--and I even bought a of Model Master "British Crimson" that looked surprisingly like your sample.  I'll have to check out Humbrel "Satin Brown" that's suggested there--if I can find it locally.

Deano

[OT Dean]

Thanks, Wayne. That wagon-top car looks a lot like I remember it--and it also seems to be very close to the shade I concocted for my HO Potomac & Ohio boxcars, which were reworked AHM Old-Time cars I bought cheap at Woolworths in the "80s. I mixed my paint the same way you did: boxcar red with a dash of caboose red. (I may have found a good substitute; see my replay to Frank.) Deano

[IRONROOSTER]

doctorwayne

 

 

zstripe

Does this Indian Red, look at all like the color? Click on link: http://colors.findthedata.com/l/693/Indian-Red

 

 

Looks like a well-tanned salmon to me, Frank. 

Wayne

 

And that's the problem with color names - the same name frequently does not refer to same color in different paint lines.

Enjoy

Paul

[gmpullman]

Hi, Deano

(snip)

OT Dean

...and joined the B&O Historical Society (guys, this is always a good idea!).

So I have to assume that you have looked through the available issues of the B&O Modeler? This one has three M27s on the cover and may show others the shade of red you're looking for?

http://www.borhs.org/modelermag/BO_Modeler_5_2009_MayJun.pdf

 

Just a stab in the dark, or a Red Herring.

Scroll down half a page here and you can see the ScalecoatII red oxide color (on a gondola.) It is what the author mentions in the boxcar article.

http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/pop_printer_friendly.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=42500

Hope that helps, Ed

[OT Dean]

Thanks, Ed, this particular "Oxide Red" is too orange/brown--to my admittedly spotty memory. I know color names have always varied by manufacturer and source--which takes me back to a letter in Model Railroader, back in the '50s, suggesting model manufacturers develop and therefore use the same shades of colors to simplify paint matching in kits! I was just a teenager at the time and even I considered that naïve. I lived in Waukesha, WI, at the time, with the old Soo Line, C&NW, and Milwaukee Road either sneaking or slashing through town, in the case of the Soo. I sat on my bike at RR crossings all the time, seeing every shade of boxcar red and Tuscan red imaginable. OF COURSE EVERY MODEL MFR USED ITS OWN SHADES and so did the prototype--and then Ma Nature modified their colors. I want a LOT of variation in car colors, a la nature, and for the four 34-footers I mentioned I bought Polly-Scale Boxcar Red, Model Flex Dark Oxide Red and Light Oxide Red--and wanted an authentically reddish boxcar red for the B&O car. The Floquil #110088 Caboose Red mentioned in the paint chart link posted in the Forum might just be the old "DH10 Caboose Red," but somebody else will have to research it for me--please!--as I lost 124 years of MR, RMC, 48/ft O Scale News, and the magazines of the MILW, CNW, and CB&Q historical societies (I now model the Mineral Point Branch of the MILW as my own version of Paul Larson's MP&N--in O scale) in a hurried couple of moves. I think, between us in the Forum, we'll get the "real skinny." Deano

[zstripe]

Deano,

Now that I know for sure about the color.....Humbrol #133 Satin should be real close. Funny...I Modeled the B&O freelanced in the 50's early 60's and did not know the boxcar's I had were that color name. I have used Humbrol paint a lot, when I used to be in Model ship building. Here is a link to Humbrol, color chart, You will find #133 in the Satin paint and also check out the Matt colors, lot of Red's. A lot of on-line shops carry Humbrol....I for some reason can't find the link right now, but will keep looking, that happens sometimes with age. 

http://scalemodeldb.com/paintcharts/humbrol

Wayne,

Believe it or not....fish color was also My first thought. 

Take Care! 

Frank

Edit: While rereading My post, I got a Ha Ha moment: Cheech & Chong, ''I can't eat all those Red's man''. 

[ALEX WARSHAL]

Just to chime in, I use Polly Scale Light Freight Car Red and I think it is a pretty good match.

-Alex Warshal