Brian, this has been discussed on the list before being address by
M-K-T historian Tom Palmer. If you are looking for the dates that the
the railroad stopped painting the cars chrome yellow it was in late
1948 according to Tom. This large group of Katy box cars was up for
major shop work after WWII for the conversion to "AB" brakes, and as
they were put through the program of shopping a repaint was in oreder.
The cars at the tail end of the repaire work in 1948 came out being
done in the box car red rather than chrome yellow. Perhaps my friend
Mr. Palmer may choose to add more to this as he is a member of the
list.

Kindest Regards,

Jerry Stewart

Chicago, Ill.


--- In STMFC@..., Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...>
wrote:

On Apr 7, 2007, at 8:39 PM, Brian J Carlson wrote:

I have always liked the chrome yellow color of these cars.

However, I

am
trying to track these done in my ORER's to see how many were

left in

1957....

....Also was the chrome yellow color still in use in 1957?

No. I can date the adoption of the yellow paint exactly, as I

happen

to have photos of a mineral red car painted at the Katy's Denison,

TX

shops in 10-41 and a yellow car painted at Denison in 11-41. All

the

other photos I have of yellow cars have reweigh dates in the 1940s
except for one car reweighed off-line at Minneapolis in 1-51. And

I

have a photo of a car freshly painted mineral red at Denison in 4-

49,

so by that date the Katy had gone back to painting the cars mineral
red. Now, it's conceivable that a few cars painted yellow ca. 1948
might have survived in that form until 1957, though by that time

they

would have been so dirty that the yellow wouldn't have been very
visible. But modeling such a car would be stretching credibility

to

(if not past) the limit, IMHO.

Were the wooden doors replaced in later years?

Apparently not. I have several photos of these cars dating from

the

1960s and all still had their original wood doors.

Richard Hendrickson