I have both builder's and in-service photos of these cars which show both
original and later lettering arrangements. Though both photos are b/w, it
appears to me that, in both the 1941 builder's shot and the 1943 in-service
photo, the cars are painted mineral red; perhaps Jeff English can enlighten
us further on this subject. I can scan my photos for you if you can
receive JPEG files.

Richard,

Thanks! I'll take those JPEGs! The builders photo must be of the third
group of 14 cars, #499050-68, built in 1941 in East Rochester (I grew up
just down the street!). The first two batches of 5 cars each were built
for the NYC (499030-34) and the B&A (17100-04) in 1928. I'm not sure where
I saw the post, but I thought that I had seen a post indicatiung that NYC
flats were originally black and were repainted mineral red in the mid '50s.
Of course, I looked over Jeff English's recent reply on NYC repaints, and
it led me to wonder if that weren't the mid 40's <G>. Additionally, this
could also lead to the interesting possibility that the '41 cars were
painted red from the beginning while in my era (1944), the 1928 cars may
still have been black (given that I saw a Freight car color PRR lettered
flat roll past my street in Auburn AL a couple of months ago!). I'm
looking forward to the scans and thanks again!

Happy Rails
Bruce

Bruce F. Smith V.M.D., Ph.D.
Scott-Ritchey Research Center
334-844-5587, 334-844-5850 (fax)
http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/~smithbf/

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" - Benjamin Franklin
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