Yes, but…..generalizations can’t cover all the eras.

 

The X23 cars were built between 1912 and 1913. They were painted with a Freight Car Color closer to a burnt orange tone and the lettering was mostly different. Many X23 box car were lettered for Pennsy subsidiaries. The paint and lettering did not look like the cars in your photo. Here’s an X23 model I built that follows lettering of the early 1920s and probably a second coat of paint. Pennsy had issues using the same paint on metal and wood components in the Teens and Twenties.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/133647483@N02/50962783627/

 

Your photo documents the paint and lettering applied much later. The PRR Freight Car Color tone changed over the years. Possibly these cars have had five or six repaints and reletters. It’s also impossible to determine if both cars were painted at the same time or in the same shop. Paint formulas and chemistry changed over time, as did maintenance priorities on older rolling stock.

 

The one constant with most Pennsy rolling stock is the weathering. I rarely see a fresh looking PRR freight car. Most seem to have a degree of weathering well beyond “light.”

 

Prototype photos from close to your modeling era can be the best guide. One photo from one era doesn’t cover it.

 

 

Eric Hansmann

Murfreesboro, TN

 

 

 

 

From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of WILLIAM PARDIE
Sent: Tuesday, July 5, 2022 1:30 PM
To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io
Subject: [RealSTMFC] BOXCAR FPINT VORIATIOIBNS

 

 

As a footnote to the color of Santa Fe refers last week, here is a photo that I recently came across.  These 

cars no doubt were painted with the basic PRR freight ca red when they exited the shops.  After a while 

however, who would know.  I will still attempt to be as accurate as possible with my paint when I build a

Car and will weather accordingly from there.

 

Bill Pardie