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Help needed - ATSF stock car paint scheme

peteraue
 

I am currently building a bunch of ATSF stock cars from Westerfield, Sunshine and InterMountain kits as they would have looked in 1950. I wonder about the color of the roof. Normal ATSF freight car roof color 1931-1951 was Anti-Slip Black however Richard Hendrickson wrote in his Santa Fe Painting & Lettering Guide: "The available evidence indicates that this compound (Anti-Slip Black) was inconsistently applied to stock cars, some of which had brown roofs!"
The color photo of the Sk-3 on the front cover of Ellington, Berry and Marten's Stock Car Book shows a brown roof and galvanized running boards so this was definitely the original paint scheme when the car was rebuilt in 1947. I found no clear evidence of any black roofs when I looked through the black & white pictures in the above book, though I realize that this is a very questionable judgement. I'd hate to paint the cars wrong so I would greatly appreciate advise about the roof color of the following stock car classes in 1950:
SK-L/N/P/Q/R/S/T/U/Z Sk-2 and Sk-3

Peter Aue
Andy Sperandeo <asperandeo@...>
 

Hello Peter,

I've followed Richard's lead on this, and used Mineral Brown on all the Santa Fe stockcars I've done. I've never seen a color photo of an ATSF stockcar with a black roof either.

So long,

Andy

Andy Sperandeo
Executive Editor
Model Railroader magazine
asperandeo@...
262-796-8776, ext. 461
FAX 262-796-1142
William Keene <wakeene@...>
 

Peter,

I see that Andy has already responded to your inquiry. I just want to
second what Andy has stated. I too, model all of my ATSF stock cars
with roofs painted Mineral Brown.

I have just checked my slides of ATSF stock cars -- the meager amount
that I have -- and all the cars I have photographed have brown roofs.
Additionally, a review of the stock cars in ATSF COLOR GUIDE TO
FREIGHT AND PASSENGER EQUIPMENT, Lloyd Stagner, Morning Sun Book,
1995, results in the finding that every stock car illustrated has (or
had) a brown roof. I add "or had" because on several the paint has
pealed off the galvanized roof material.

Happy modeling.

Bill Keene
Irvine, CA

On Oct 26, 2009, at 10:33 AM, peteraue wrote:

I am currently building a bunch of ATSF stock cars from Westerfield,
Sunshine and InterMountain kits as they would have looked in 1950. I
wonder about the color of the roof. Normal ATSF freight car roof
color 1931-1951 was Anti-Slip Black however Richard Hendrickson
wrote in his Santa Fe Painting & Lettering Guide: "The available
evidence indicates that this compound (Anti-Slip Black) was
inconsistently applied to stock cars, some of which had brown roofs!"
The color photo of the Sk-3 on the front cover of Ellington, Berry
and Marten's Stock Car Book shows a brown roof and galvanized
running boards so this was definitely the original paint scheme when
the car was rebuilt in 1947. I found no clear evidence of any black
roofs when I looked through the black & white pictures in the above
book, though I realize that this is a very questionable judgement.
I'd hate to paint the cars wrong so I would greatly appreciate
advise about the roof color of the following stock car classes in
1950:
SK-L/N/P/Q/R/S/T/U/Z Sk-2 and Sk-3

Peter Aue
Richard Hendrickson
 

On Oct 26, 2009, at 10:33 AM, peteraue wrote:

I am currently building a bunch of ATSF stock cars from
Westerfield, Sunshine and InterMountain kits as they would have
looked in 1950. I wonder about the color of the roof. Normal ATSF
freight car roof color 1931-1951 was Anti-Slip Black however
Richard Hendrickson wrote in his Santa Fe Painting & Lettering
Guide: "The available evidence indicates that this compound (Anti-
Slip Black) was inconsistently applied to stock cars, some of which
had brown roofs!"
The color photo of the Sk-3 on the front cover of Ellington, Berry
and Marten's Stock Car Book shows a brown roof and galvanized
running boards so this was definitely the original paint scheme
when the car was rebuilt in 1947. I found no clear evidence of any
black roofs when I looked through the black & white pictures in the
above book, though I realize that this is a very questionable
judgement. I'd hate to paint the cars wrong so I would greatly
appreciate advise about the roof color of the following stock car
classes in 1950:
SK-L/N/P/Q/R/S/T/U/Z Sk-2 and Sk-3
I can validate what has been said by Andy and others who responded on
this subject. I have in the neighborhood of 300 photos of Santa Fe
stock cars dating from the teens through the 1960s, and of those
there are exactly three b/w photos from the 1940s/'50s where I'm
pretty sure the roofs were black. The color shots I have all date
from the '60s, and they show no black roofs. My best guess is that
one or two shops may have applied black roof paint when repainting
cars in the 1940s, but that it was certainly far from common practice.

Richard Hendrickson
peteraue
 

Thank you very much Andy, Bill and Richard for your advise. All roofs are brown now and I am looking forward to final assembly and lettering.
Peter Aue

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