QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
McCloud RR all-door colors
Q.
I'm looking to paint and decal some custom boxcars I'm
building. Can someone point me to the right color or color
combination of model paints? I prefer Scalecoat II, but will use
whatever works. The kind of car I'm working on is a rebuilt for-
mer all-door car which is nothing like the plate B Atlas car. The
era my car will be painted for is early 1980s when the car had
fresh paint, which looked much darker than it eventually faded
out to be in the late '90s.
– Mike Lozensky
A.
“Stottman” suggests a dark “roof brown” as a close match,
and posted a sample photo (1) of a McCloud River box car.
Rick Uhlenkott adds: “The all-door cars were not box cars, but
fully enclosed bulkhead flat cars. They fell out of favor with
Questions, Answers & Tips - 1
1
1: A McCloud River
Railroad boxcar
shows the com-
pany's white and
brown scheme,
well-faded in this
case.
'Stottman'
photo.
shippers after deregulation allowed railroads more latitude
in setting fees. To achieve the full enclosure but still have
the whole length of of the car accessible, they had a massive
beam/roof structure to hold up not only the roof, but support
the doors as well (the doors hung from the roof since there
was no side wall).
“The beefier structure added so much extra weight that the cars
were expensive for the railroads to handle. Before deregulation,
the roads were constrained to the official fee schedule and could
not recoup the extra cost. After deregulation, the fees charged
to move these cars shot up to reflect the actual cost and most
shippers decided that was too much.”
Railroad researchers can find photos at:
and many more photos of MR box cars are at:
.
– MRH
MRH-Oct 2013
