The P&WV Hi-Line

[Rich_S]

I think we determined all of the 60 ton 2 bay offset hoppers painted in the "Symbol of Service" scheme were black cars with white lettering?

My question, did we ever determine if all of the the cars painted into the "The Alphabet Route" scheme were painted in the orange / red car color with yellow lettering? And if not, which cars received the orange / red car color with the yellow lettering?


Or I guess another way of asking the question, was this car a orange / red car with yellow lettering or a black car with white lettering.

http://www.thepwvhiline.com/RollingStockSeriesPart4Sec%20version%201/Hopper223Web.html
_________________
Regards,
Rich S.

[jayrod]

Hey Rich,

From what I can tell, all of the offset hoppers that were painted into the Alphabet Route scheme were a mineral red and the "standard" chrome yellow. Which ones? How many? Not sure. They weren't done in numerical order. I go by photos.

These were all part of the Greenville rebuild/lease back program from 1960-61. They were originally 60T cars built by Pressed Steel Car Co. in 1949, 1 - 600 series. When the program started, they were downgraded to 50T and painted black with white lettering in the Symbol of Service scheme. In mid 1961, they switched to the Alphabet route scheme. So, both schemes were running at the same time with seemingly random numbers. I'm still trying to determine the actual paint color code used for the mineral red. I'm almost positive it was an off the shelf color.

The only black cars I know of for sure with the Alphabet Route scheme were the four 50' Ralston boxcars in pool service with the NKP for auto parts. The lettering was chrome yellow.

Maybe JZ can correct any misinformation or add some more detail.
_________________
Eric Schlentner
Aka, jayrod

[PWVJer]

Jayrod,
All(13 total) NKP leased 50' dbl.-door Ralston cars
were, only "Symbol of Service" painted Black
with White reporting marks.
Link:
http://www.thepwvhiline.com/HistoricEraImagesJan2006Pa/index.html


Rich, NO/None/Never! Off-set hoppers, with the Block "Alphabet Route"
were painted Black with White reporting marks. The Toy-makers,
both models, N & H.O. made this one up.

Red Car Color...Jayrod is correct! We still
are not 100% sure of the exact color used.
Still researching Co. Archives for more clues.
Link:
http://www.thepwvhiline.com/BB/viewtopic.php?t=628&sid=3ad4ea225f34718472078448eabbf658

However, we are all in agreement that it was "Hi-Line Yellow"
for reporting marks and MORE-RED/Red-ish leaning, rather than orange-ish
that you see in current models on the market.

BTW, I could live with the "Big E Productions Color Sample"!

[Rich_S]

I see my CRS (Can't Remember Sh**) is kicking in again. I had thought we talked about this before, but I couldn't remember the correct answer. Thanks guys for the info. It looks like Micro-trains got their cars in the ball park.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MTL-Micro-Trains-55260-P-WV-380-/130889099429?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item1e799928a5
_________________
Regards,
Rich S.

[jayrod]

Whoa. False memory and cranial flatulence. Wait a sec... Ok. Whew. Second cup of coffee now down. That'll teach me to not look at the data and answer before I'm fully awake. But... it seemed... soooo REAL!

Checked my stuff and JZ is perfectly correct on the NKP pool boxcars. But do I get points for remembering that they were built by Ralston???
_________________
Eric Schlentner
Aka, jayrod

[Rich_S]

[jayrod]

Let me go back through my notes and post back. The information on which cars is really sketchy and I thought I had it straight at one point so I'll have to refresh my memory (what's left of it). ACF and PSCC cars did go through a rebuild at Rook in the 50s where they received the SOS scheme. Greenville started the program by continuing the same SOS scheme and then switched to the AR scheme. I'm not sure off the top of my head if any ACF cars went to Greenville. I'll look and post back.
_________________
Eric Schlentner
Aka, jayrod

[PWVJer]

Rich,
you seem to have most of it about right.
However, I think the thing you(and most of us)
are trying to figure out is,
just how many off-set hoppers(and-a-few-box-cars)
were painted red?

After pouring-over piles of archives materials and
trying to connect other related bits of information,
my conclusion is simply this:
The vast majority of P&WV hoppers, both Offset & Rib/Channel
were black W/ white reporting marks.
Based on info in hand to this date: maybe tops, about 50(might be
much less), were Red with the AR scheme. These appear to be
random car numbers. Chosen by Greenville Car Co. ,
in part to make their(GSC) car re-pair & lease service's look good?

At this point 61'-62'-63' in P&WV R.R. history: {the mix of
merger talks, poor profits,
across-the-board cost-cutting-moves and a general uncertain transportation out-look & future}
points to the question "why a small, regional railroad, losing $$$,
mergers all around" choose this time to re-paint & add a new look to a small fleet of
aged rolling stock?

Just because we see more pics/images of the Red-Car Hoppers in various image collections,
could have a more simple answer.
Were they just a bit more interesting to the rail-fan camera? Tricking us to believe most were red?
Again, these were a nice colorful look from the vast majority of black & white cars.

[Rich_S]

PWVJer and Jayrod,
Thank you both for the information. I guess the one thing we know for sure is if the boxcar or hopper has the "THE ALPHABET ROUTE" slogan, then it was a mineral red car with chrome yellow lettering.

The only downside is we don't have an exact list of which cars actually wore the AR slogan.

Second we know that all hoppers that wore the "Symbol of Service" were black cars with white lettering.

My next question, were the boxcars in the 1300 series that wore the "Symbol of Service" slogan, painted boxcar brown or black?
_________________
Regards,
Rich S.

[jayrod]

Correct assumptions on the Greenville hopper color schemes. And... a good question on the shopped boxcars. I haven't started any research on those yet and I bet they're going to be random, also. 1200s for sure.
_________________
Eric Schlentner
Aka, jayrod

[PWVJer]

Rich,
P&WV Box Cars, 1300's/1200's cars when delivered new
were some form of box-car-red, AC&F or PS Company,
standard, off-the-shelf, color mix. All had only the basic
reporting marks/car data with P&WV Co. Logo(Two-styles) to the far upper right.

After 1956, ( P&WV Top-Management change) as these cars
came into Rook Car-shops for Repair/Re-shop-service they began to (at-random) receive the
SOS slogan. All car bodies during this time period remained box-car-red.

How many in total had SOS applied and rolled out? Car Numbers? Car types AC&F/PS?
My guess...Most, but not all got the "New-SOS-Look ".

As Tim McCready and other "car-knockers" we
have spoke to in the past all said: " when the P&WV
started to fall on the bad-times " ...everything started to
get the cheap/cost-cutting Black, Lamp-Black & Mineral Spirts,
a thin P&WV Gloss Black with basic white car data/reporting marks.

The SOS & Logo,
in a thin-ed white paint version was also applied. This program lasted late 60' thru Oct 64'.
The Bright Red, Alphabet-Route-Yellow Stenciled cars...How-Where-When-Why
Totals ??????

***BTW, I would not give the Off-Set Hoppers a Minerial/Oxide Red
WM-type discription. The P&WV leaned/looked much more towards the bright-red spectrum.

[Rich_S]

[PWVJer]

Rich,
...not quite.
But more red pigment than
any models in the market place today.
Link:
http://www.thepwvhiline.com/BB/viewtopic.php?t=628&sid=43a5270192d2bfd3bf803d925512aaa7

There is a private R.R. image collector
we have heard... who may have a few good
color pics/prints of the AR hoppers &
early Box Cars.
The Hi-Line is still active in the search for this
image collection. No luck so far.

[jayrod]

The red on the Alpha Rt hoppers is kinda like an automotive red primer in color. Probably the same red ochre base pigment. Right now, the color chart is an approximation. I haven't been able to nail down a color code yet but haven't given up on it though it has to be someone's "standard" color formulation or a copy of something another road used. I'd be nice to have accurately colored models. We'll keep ya posted...
_________________
Eric Schlentner
Aka, jayrod

[Rich_S]

Jayrod and PWVJer, Hopefully the color chart I'm attaching will be large enough to be visible?

[chart deleted to save on band width]
_________________
Regards,
Rich S.

[jayrod]

Without pinning down the actual color code of the original paint, it's all just a WAG. You can't go by photos cuz of the lighting, dirt and weathering. Digital swatches are approximate. Scanned charts will definitely be way off. Greenville's color has to match some other road's color that purchased cars from them about that time period. I'm dead sure that P&WV wouldn't have paid to develop a special color.

I'd consider the color to be somewhere between Polly Scale F414350 Mineral Red and Western Maryland Oxide Red for freshly applied paint. Maybe JZ has a better guess. To me, most commercial models seem too orange.

I'm going to talk to a paint guy that's going to do some work for us who can cross reference old DuPont/Ditzler/Sherwin Williams color codes and see if he can come up with some possibilities for me to research.

This one has been a really tough nut to crack.
_________________
Eric Schlentner
Aka, jayrod

[PWVJer]

Yep! I think Jayrods assement is spot on!
At this point it's only our... Some-What Educated(WAG)
suggestion etc.

BTW, in both the Print & Slide of 380, the dead-give-away,
is the nice green/blue tint the building shows.
A nice hopper-car image, but maybe, a poor original color processing job?

[jayrod]

After staring at paint chips for the last two hours, here's what I've come up with:



The body color would be Floquil Zinc Oxide Primer. Weather the heck out of it and nobody could nitpick.
_________________
Eric Schlentner
Aka, jayrod

[PWVJer]

yea... I could live with those colors
& car assements as well!

[Rich_S]

[jayrod]

My bad. Brain said "chromate", fingers typed "oxide". The red in the graphic was sampled off the Floquil Zinc Chromate. Sorry 'bout that.
_________________
Eric Schlentner
Aka, jayrod

[jayrod]

Okey dokey folks. Based on the above discussion, and since if I stare at any more red swatches I'll become color blind, the color standards sheet has been updated to show Floquil Zinc Chromate as the red body color for Alphabet cars:

http://www.bigeprod.com/images/projects/PWV/pwvColorStds08_23_13.pdf
_________________
Eric Schlentner
Aka, jayrod

[Rich_S]

Thanks jayrod for the info on this car and paint suggestions for all of the P&WV paint.

You probably want to update your standards sheet for the Mineral Red Model Paint selection. The acrylic color is:

Polly Scale "Zinc Chromate Primer" Part Number F414293

That is until Testors discontinues the line. :(

On a side note, have you looked into the new "Tru-Color Paint"?

http://www.trucolorpaint.com/

according to their web site:

[jayrod]

Thanks, Rich.

I've requested the Tru-Color chart. An actual chip set would be wonderful but I've asked how they did their PDF file so I can hopefully adjust it for accuracy. If it's a scanned image, color matching will be really tough. I'll post back here when I get something.
_________________
Eric Schlentner
Aka, jayrod

[jayrod]

Tru-Color is going to have their lab look at the Zinc Chromate color. However, the chrome yellow and red have been suggested to be TCP-162, Milwaukee Road Hopper Yellow and TCP-052, Caboose Red. I have a scanned swatch of the TCP-052 that looks darn close to the swatch of DuPont 93-1863 - a slight shade darker probably due to the scan. I don't have a swatch of TCP 162.

When I get more info, I'll white balance the samples and see what happens. If these colors are "tru" then this can be an easy solution for these colors.
_________________
Eric Schlentner
Aka, jayrod