--- In STMFC@..., "mike brock" <brockm@...> wrote:

...The cover photo of
the well known May, 1992, MM [ Jack Delano photo ] in color of the roofs of
quite a few box cars provides many examples. More than one are
black...although I don't know what the original covering was. One thing is
for sure...the roofs are grimy.

C&NW car 15334 is by itself fodder for a painting clinic. For those having
the issue or the photo on the internet from the gvt archive, note how dirty
appearing the roof is compared to the car's side and end. Note also the
difference in color of car C&NW 15472 standing next to 15334.

Mike Brock

A well known photo indeed. I think it's been mentioned here before. For those who don't have it at hand, it's at the Library of Congress here:
http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsac.1a34660/

The 15000 series cars Mike called our attention to have recently come out of a rebuild program, so I think it's fair to assume the reweigh date is the the repaint date. 15334's date appears to be 12-42. There's not quite enough resolution in the hi-rez tiff for me to be sure, but I think 15472 has a 7-42 date. Just a few months have made a great difference in fading the paint. (Caveat- LOC says the photo was taken March or April '43. I'm not convinced that's correct.)

All the wood-sheathed CNW boxcars in view should be painted with paints matched to the same drift card, C&NW standard paint no.1, "a reddish brown liquid paint used for exterior of wooden freight cars, camp cars, and work equipment cars". Specific paints from eight vendors were approved "with adjustment to match shade". The steel CStPM&OnGS gons farther back should all be No.3, an almost identical shade for steel cars.

Jack Mullen