Santa Fe used mineral brown (its standard freight car color)
Hello All,
MorparI would like to add some color, but don't really want to go too far from prototypical.
Keep in mind hoppers are and were work-a-day cars, nothing fancy or flashy.
Modern coal hoppers are unpainted aluminum with one end painted to signify the rotary coupler, usually red or yellow.
Older hoppers were painted for utilitarian purposes not so much for aesthetics, with some exceptions.
My fleet of HO Tyco operating hoppers are colored in: silver (Virginian), blue (Boston & Main), battleship gray (Monon), black (DT&I, C&O, and Reading), gray (Spreckles Sugar), and white (Holly Sugar).
Typically hoppers aren't washed; other than rain, so bright colors will fade and weather as they are in service.
As many say, "My railroad, my rules."
If you (or your wife) want a fleet of pink hoppers then so be it.
Hope this helps.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
Black or brown/boxcar red would be the most common in the steam to early transition eras. Later, as railroads started to have their own individual railroad colors (as opposed to painting cars based on the type of car - caboose red cabooses, boxcar red boxcars, etc.) cars were sometimes painted in brighter colors.
PRR went from "Freight Car Color" (their version of "Boxcar Red") to bLACK
Both the Minneapolis & St Louis and the Burlington had bright red coal hoppers in the late 50's.
Rick Jesionowski
Rule 1: This is my railroad.
Rule 2: I make the rules.
Rule 3: Illuminating discussion of prototype history, equipment and operating practices is always welcome, but in the event of visitor-perceived anacronisms, detail descrepancies or operating errors, consult RULE 1!
What about brown?
As mentioned, black or some form of boxcar red were the most-used colours for hoppers and gondolas.I'm modelling the late'30s, and have some home road hoppers (freelance) in boxcar red, along with similar-coloured cars used by some real railroads.I also have a lot of interchange with a couple of prototype roads.
One is Canadian National, which painted their hoppers and gondolas black, but in 1940, changed both types to some form of boxcar red/brown.On my layout, only the CNR black ones are seen.I also have an interchange with my prototype hometown TH&B Railway, and their hoppers and gondolas were black right from their beginning, and right into their absorption into the CPR. Here's a few of the 12 TH&B hoppers that I built by modifying Bowser (originally Stewart) kits...
Depending on your modelling era, you could probably slip-in a few of those more brightly-coloured ones.
Wayne
The L&N had some orange coal hoppers.
Russell
The vast overwhelming majority of open top hoppers were either black or some shade of boxcar red. The outlier cars were usually very small fleets in limited service. The 40 ft, 70 ton offset quad was a WW1-1920's era car that would have been obsolete by the time the colorful cars of the 1970's came along.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
I seem to remember NYC hoppers in red.
If you are decorating them for prototype railroads, the practice of the railroad being modeled will dictate the color used.
If you are decorating them for a freelance railroad, and you want to look "right", black it is. Some were boxcar red, maybe some silver, but black will look correct.
-Photographs by Kevin Parson
Of course, if you are freelancing, you really are free to do whatever you want.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
There's orange:
Waddell Coal-107 by Edmund, on Flickr
I did look into these cars and if I recall correctly there were ten of them painted this way. Another outfit, Blue Coal, used a blue dye as a marketing gimmic but I'm not sure if they actually had blue hopper cars.
IMG_2472 by Edmund, on Flickr
In other words, I think the blue hopper shown above is a "foobie".
I recall seeing some Rock Island hoppers in bright blue but these would be more modern than your Athearn models.
I see Red...
Red Rule by Lance, on Flickr
Possibly yellow for Peabody Short Line:
https://www.protocraft.com/category.cfm?ItemID=10365&Categoryid=51
Good Luck, Ed
So I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 undecorated Athearn blue box 40' offset side quad hoppers which will likely get some paint put on them before too long. I am familiar with black hoppers in real life, but for the time period these were in use were there significant numbers in other colors? Maybe boxcar red or silver? Yellow or blue would be nice too! I would like to add some color, but don't really want to go too far from prototypical. Any good suggestions? I know my wife wants me to make something pink too, but I was leaning more toward covered hoppers or boxcar for those.
Good Luck, Morpar