Railroad's paint names

[Woody Elmore]

My godfather worked for the PRR and they called the striping on the GG-1s "cat whiskers." The greatest paint debate centers around the Pennsy's use of "Brunswick Green" - a color so deep and rich it was often mistaken as black. Seeing a clean GG-1 in the sunlight showed what a nice rich green it was. The Brunswick green was also used on steam engines.

How about the Southern Railway's use of "Virginia Green?"

I was kind of fond of the older Seaboard pullman green with orange and yellow stiping. It must have cost a few bucks to apply and maintain. The yellow and orange represented the sunshine and oranges of Florida.

The CRR of NJ's Blue Comet train was an interesting, colorful train.  It was sky blue with a cream colored band along the windows - the cream color presented the beaches and the blue was the sky and ocean water. A little known fact is that the end of the cars were painted a darker blue. Lionel immortalized the train when it produced one in standard gage. Soprano's fans will recall that Bobby gets killed in a train store buying a Lionel Blue Comet set!

[Desertdweller]

Here are a few more:

Paint jobs named for railroad execs:

The MP solid dark blue "Jenk's Blue".

The acid yellow color on some C&NW locomotives:  "Zito Yellow".

Other color names:

GN orange: "Omaha Orange".

GN blue:  "Big Sky Blue".

UP yellow: "Armour Yellow".

UP gray:  "Harbor Mist Gray".

RI light blue:  "Bankruptcy Blue".

RI white:  "Bled White".

Les

[ebtnut]

The B&O's President Class Pacifics were originally painted Olive Green with gold trim and striping.  The survivor at the B&O Museum has a version of this scheme, but the green color is too light.  Later in life they recieved the Royal Blue (sometimes referred to as BANDO Blue) color which they kept until retired.  As near as I can ascertain, only the P-7's got the blue paint. 

[GoCanes]

War bonnet is the famous ATSF scheme of a chrome white, red and yellow

Blue bonnet is the ATSF freight scheme of blue and yellow

Peach fuzz is a BNSF unit that seems to have a bright orange (more like a faded orange) that is like the earlier paint scheme of BNSF, but you can easily tell the difference if they were side by side.

BN executives are the BNSF SD80macs (correct me if wrong) that are ex. BN units from the early 90s with a green BNSF on the side.

CSX stealth is a gray body with blue lettering

CSX YN1 is like stealth, but has a lighter gray, and has a yellow nose plus yellow lettering.

CSX YN2 has the yellow nose, still light gray, but some of the parts are blue as well (SD40-2s, AC4400s, almost any freight loco CSX owned)

CSX YN3, also known as "dark future" paint has a yellow nose, yellow lettering and the rest of the body is blue.

NS has 2 differnt paint schemes, one plain and the other is a "horse head" whichis like the name, it has a horse head with the paint.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, I've been to berea and heard these names reffered to (and I use them myself) so I think they're the offical names.

As I'm doing CSX, I thank you for this post 

[Jim Banner]

CN also has the 'North America' scheme, which is 'CN' in white on the side with a grey picture of the North American continent.

Ah yes.  The infamous "peeling paint" scheme.  Almost any other colour would have worked.  But grey looked like primer and the edges of North America looked jagged like the edges of peeling paint.

Jim

[kpsdjs]

Jim...I'm already 6'4", are you stretching my leg? Or is that their scheam?

   Either way, it tickled my giggle.

Thanks, Gimme More,
Kelly

[Jim Banner]

Sorry, Kelly, but I am not going to make you any taller.  While that was not CN's official name for that scheme, it was widely called that around these parts.  I still remember the first locomotive I saw with that grey North America on it and wondering what had gone wrong with the paint job.  It was only later, when I was telling a friend about it, that I was informed that the grey patch was North America.

Jim

[kpsdjs]

AHH HAAAHAA HE HE HE HOHO HE HEE.....

   Oops... I forgot I was posting!

TOOO Much Fun, Thanx,
Kelly

[Michigan Railfan]

Here's an example of the CN Zebra Stripe scheme on a GP40-2W. I made this in Microsoft Paint, using a blank template from trainiax.net. I painted the entire loco using MS paint.

[PiedmontRR]

The CN "Noodle" is a classic design and began a modernisation trend in many corporate logos.  The Nike "Flash" is an example of the infuence of the CN noodle design.

yeah like Central Vermont.  Looks like they ripped that off.

[Jim Banner]

yeah like Central Vermont.  Looks like they ripped that off.

I am not sure who you think ripped off whom but you must remember that CN owned the Central Vermont at the time they gave them the CV noodle.  It was a change of corporate image and they both abandoned the earlier corporate image of the railways' names on a maple leaf background.

Jim

[Jim Banner]

Bright Red has been interpreted as a rusty red oxide and/or a Pinkish Orange depending on which shop painted the equipment, whether it be the prototype or modeler.

After watching the few color film records and viewing the very few color photographs available, I believe the shades are open for personal preference.

Reds have historically been problematic.  They tended to fade in sunlight.  That is why there were few if any red automobiles before 1950.  I still remember the bright red Renault a friend bought in about 1958.  Within a couple of years, it had faded to that Pinkish Orange colour jonathan mentioned.  I suspect the apparent lack of standardization in reds at that time may have been caused by cars in different stages of fading.  It does not help that colour photos also tend to fade and change colours with time.  And the black and white film of the time was just as bad.  The orthochromatic film then in use showed red as black because it had no sensitivity to red light.

Jim

[Doneldon]

Blue bonnet is the ATSF freight scheme of blue and yellow

jtf-
Actually, the freight paint scheme was not called blue bonnet. It was sometimes called "cat's whiskers" or cigar band," but never blue bonnet; it was generally just referred to as "freight." The Santa Fe didn't do blue bonnets because the Delaware and Hudson already had a blue paint scheme which was very similarly shaped to the AT&SFRy war bonnet pattern. There was a yellow warbonnet scheme.

Reds have historically been problematic.  They tended to fade in sunlight.  That is why there were few if any red automobiles before 1950.

Jim-
Sun fading is why we see so few yellow cars and houses. There are sun-safe yellow pigments but they are much, much more expensive than other pigments. This also explains the dearth of orange cars; inexpensive yellow pigments would fade out leaving an anemic shade of red.

Who can tell us how the MP painted their steam engines before 1925?  And why did it go away?

Paul-
With a sprayer?
                                                                              -- D

[Desertdweller]

Don,

The AT&SF did have a few F-7's that were painted in the blue warbonnet scheme.  They were former passenger units.  Ed Fulcomer's "Rocky Mountain Railroad Memories" has a picture of one, the 329.  Although the picture itself is black and white.

As for fading red paint, this accounts for the many shades of "Armour Yellow" on UP units.  This yellow has a high red component added.  The color is very rich when fresh, then fades out to a paler yellow.

The Chicago Great Western had a bright red and maroon paint scheme on their Diesels.  This was followed by an all bright red scheme, followed by an all maroon scheme.  As the red faded out of the maroon, the color turned purple!

I belonged to a model railroad club once, and built up an A-B-B-A set of F-7's.  I painted and decalled them for the bright red scheme.  I got so many complaints that they were the wrong color, I finally repainted them in the solid maroon.

Fading red paint on autos is a problem that seems to have never been solved completely.  I remember especially early 50's Dodges and Plymouths that would fade from maroon to purple.  As both maroon and purple are combinations of red and blue, this makes sense.

Les

[Doneldon]

Desert-

Yes, there were a few locos painted in a pattern which was reminiscent of the warbonnet scheme but it wasn't the same nor did I ever hear of it being referred to that way. I believe it was basically a test pattern.

Yes, I agree that the automotive industry has solved the pigment problems with red but yellow is still a problem.
                                                                                                                                                                     -- D