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Paint Top of Car

2K views 25 replies 8 participants last post by  Atlanta 
#1 · (Edited)
All my cars including caboose have black painted tops. I bought a new car in mineral red (more like a tan/orange) and frankly looks cheap. I painted the top a medium hammer-tone grey and it now looks great. The car has ribs on sides and top making it look even cheaper. The hammer-tone paint has a more distinctive appearance. Anyone else did not like car tops same color as rest of body? My train is era 1915.
 
#2 · (Edited)
Well, the real car makers often painted the roof the same color as the body, so it's not like it is wrong....but if you want to paint it a different color, go for it....although there are people out there who would object to your "modifying".... :laugh:

As for the ribs on the tops and sides, those are there to strengthen the roof and sides, and were part of the structural design of the (real) car....

Correction: I just realized you are talking about the simulated wood slats that the real cars were made of.....nothing cheap looking about prototypical modelling.....
 
G
#4 ·
Hi Jimben, many prototypical boxcars have had and still do have a different colour for the roof. Some examples are the UP, SP, and Santa Fe fruit express cars. Also Beer reefers and 86' auto parts boxcars. I am also going to add painted roofs to other cars as well.

Regards,

Gary.
 
#12 ·
I don't care if they got it wrong....I don't do that scale....:)

Plus, Bachmann has been known to do things wrong, so I hope you aren't using all their equipment as real railroad history....

Although they did get it right with the boxcar you showed with the roof painted the same as the rest of the car....;)
 
#20 ·
The locomotive is all steel. May not be wrong at all.

Passenger cars of that age usually had tarred canvas roofs.

Boxcars would have wood (yours does) or basic sheet metal roofing. This would either be painted (probably the same colour as the rest of the car) or sealed with "car cement", which is a dark colour.

I would suggest attempting some research, trolling through period photos and any other actual references you can get before just slapping colours that may not be remotely accurate (that grey is almost certainly a no) just because you think you don't like it - I mean, you can do whatever you want, it's you're stuff, but I don't think you're actually making anything more accurate at this point...
 
#21 ·
As a general rule, if the roof material was subject to rust or other water damage, it got painted, and it was usually the same color as the body. So, most anything built before the 1950's had the roofs painted. Some railroads did paint roofs and ends different colors as a stylistic option. This seems to have been a bit more common with reefers. As stainless steel and aluminum became common car-building materials, roof painting became less a necessity.
 
#26 ·
In central europe exspecially in germany it gives special car painting rules from the early beginning in 1835 until now.

Before Germany became an Imperial Nation with one Kaiser (Ceasar) in 1871, Germany was a Terretory of lot of own manadged Kingdoms or bigger Towns, counties and so on. It gave more than hundreds of different State RRs but the bigger Kingdoms had all their own State RR with their own painting schemes.
The green of the cars were different from State to state.
The roofs varyfied between light grey until dark grey or tarpaper black. Most cars had oiled sail persennings onto top of passenger car roofs.
The first all steel passenger cars had been built shortly before or after WW II, it were real Thunder Cars with loud noise inside it when moving over the rail joints and turnouts.

The 4th Classes had its own specific color scheme, later in Era 2 the three Classes got one main green. Some Express 1rst Class Cars were blue the Diners and Sleepers were red.

In Era 1 from 1875 to 1919 the color shame of the Prussian State Railway had grey cars for 4th class, brown for 3rd Class and Olivegreen for 2nd Class Cars the roofs were light grey but mostly darker by dust from coal fired locos.
The 4th class was never seen on Express Trains and the 1rst class was never seen on Local Trains.
Some Express Cars had a black stripe below the windows.

A train were all classes had been used was possible at the former German South-West Colony only, the today Namibia.
 

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