Re: Palace Poultry Car Color
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Jake Schaible
As you may know, no PPKX car is known to survive. So there is a bit of debate on the exact color. (The sole cackle car existent is a Live Poultry Transport type at the StL MoT.) B&W images of PPKX cars (for example, google "PPKX 5065") show the scheme, but I'm not aware of any contemporaneous primary source that details the specific paint used on these cars. "Home to Roost: The Story of Live Poultry Transit by Rail", by John H. White, Jr. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3743735) mentions in passing the poultry cars being "yellow" but is unclear who's cars he was talking about and this comes after a passage about the LPT. So this may be a case where the best evidence may be old models. Ambroid introduced it's shake box kit of the PPKX car "Speedy" in 1961 and apprentice details that the "color scheme was white body, green ends, roof and doors, and black underframe." The car is reviewed in the September, 1961 issue of Model Railroader in the Trade Topics column (p 14) which added the lettering was also green for over the door, and white for the black side of the exposed underframe. This car was later sold by Northeastern as kit #HS-4. Some images on line suggest the modeler went with a kelly green, but I think this might be a mistake. Remember these cars were often placed on express trains, so I have long had a hunch they were more an olive / harriman green to match the train. Having said that, I'm aware of an image at CSRM of a PPKX car (https://calisphere.org/item/044134bd1c9508696497bdda52a5359b/) where I would be hard pressed to prove the body was painted anything other than a single color, but does seem to confirm the lettering over the door is darker than the side and the lettering on the side frame is lighter. Sorry I could not be more helpful. Cheers, Jake Schaible
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