Clear color photo:

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=504225&nseq=165

Nary a blotched roof in sight.

      Good photo to make the point, Rod. Richard Hendrickson and I agreed, and both of us said publicly, that many transition-era modelers exaggerate paint failure on roofs. Sure, it existed, but it was neither very common nor, in most cases, very severe. Today's freight cars, with different paint and different maintenance attitudes, are a different matter. As always, following a photo is a good procedure.

Tony Thompson 

As I noted before, this picture can be found as a full 2 page spread in the Summer 2014 Classic Trains at pages 14 and 15. There are even colored roofs but not from paint specs for the 4 CB&Q cars nor the Milwaukee ribbed boxcar nor the NYC boxcar. Was the CNW boxcar roof painted black?

gary laakso

     As I said, Tim, Richard and I, on the basis of LOTS of photos, concluded what Arved concluded. Richard was, as you know, a most meticulous follower of prototype photos (the main reason he collected so many, more than 30,000). When attaching route cards on some of his models, he bent them slightly so that they do not lay flat on the route card board -- something you see in some photos. But he only represented roof paint failure, and that lightly, on a FEW of his more than 200 completed freight cars.
      You are right, 10 cars is too small a sample to mean much. But I believe your implication, that this sample tells the wrong story, is simply incorrect.

Tony Thompson 

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=504225&nseq=165

"Why does the Fruit Growers Express reefer have 'F.H.I.X.' reporting marks?"

Thanks. That changes my mind a lot about modeling cars with paint failures on the roof.
Should be a relatively rare exception given the sample in this photo.
Arved Grass

Arved, really? From a sample size of about 10 cars including one
nearly new reefer and 4 box cars that had unpainted galvanized roofs,
you would infer that roof paint failure was rare? The only one I'm
not sure about is that NYC box -- can't tell if the roof is original
or a replacement but the car has post-1955 paint.

The SP box car in the background originally had a painted roof -- but
it's all worn off except for the seam caps.

1958 is the start of "my era" of modeling -- Lots of shiny new cars
and plenty of older cars too. Great assortment in this photo!

The "FHIX" stood for Fruit Growers Express, High Insulation" -- there
were also WHIX cars for Western Fruit Express. These cars had 33% more
cubic capacity than conventional 40 foot ice reefers.

Tim

P.S. If you need some photos of roof paint failure I can send you some. :-)