Guys, I think the Suthern Railway has done it to me again. Having purchased some beatiful E8s and FP7s in the green scheme ages ago I subsequently found out they were painted black in my era (1965). Elementary mistake but they were green in old photos, green in new photos, guys they were green..! OK I know better now. Now, after I built a small fleet of brown coal hoppers, someone has told me they were't painted brown until the late 60's / early 70's. Arrggh! Can anyone confirm, or refer me to some definitive source?
Welcome to Trainboard, Andy! Everyone here will do all that is possible to help with any questions or problems you may have. Check out this site: http://southern.railfan.net/images/archive/southern/freight/hop/hop.html This page has 21 pics of hopper cars of various eras. This is a great site to find almost any info you need. Check out the links to other Southern fan sites. This may answer better. http://www.hosam.com/srr/frtcarpnt.html According to HOSAM, starting in the mid-50's, freight-car-brown was the color that was used. Unless you are the type that everything has to be prototypic(I'm not), I wouldn't worry about a 2-3 year time span. I would run them without a second thought. To me, this should be fun, and worrying about all the details will take away from the fun. It's your world; feel free to run what looks good or what you want. Who's to say there were no black or no green Es & Fs pulling the tuscan brown hoppers. There is always an overlap in new and old equipment. The main thing is just have fun. Hope this helps. Thanks to Southern Railfan and HOSAM for having such great info on their sites. IM63:thumbs_up:
Having checked in several thousand Southern hopper cars during the years 1964-1973 I can assure you that every single one was brown with white lettering - no exceptions! I know that in the 1950's an awful lot were black with white lettering which may have been the previous colors, but here in Coastal Carolina from '64 on - no. And, if memory serves me correct, the Southern went from green to black on their locomotives in 1957. To get around that fact (and ACL's switch from purple & silver to black and yellow, also in 1957), I model 1957 - 1967 without apology. Also, don't know what traffic you're modelling in those hoppers, but if it's sand and gravel the Southern always seem to take the older two-bay cars from the Central of Georgia, Interstate, TA&G, and Norfolk Southern and apply them to that service regardless of location. So, as previously advised, run 'em the way that suits you.
Andy T - You're welcome. My initial reply was "off the top of my head" so to speak. To check myself I consulted a lot of Southern photos especially as regards their diesels. As far as I can ascertain, Southern re-painted their passenger units into black fairly quickly. However, as late as 1961, two of the PA-3's were still green and at least one FP-7. Freight units, especially the RS-2's and 3's, were a different story. As far as I can tell there were still a "bunch" in green until at least 1962. GP-7 photos were all in B&W which makes it harder to tell, especially since a lot black repaints continued to use the smaller "Southern" font which is/was the same as used on the green. Until 1958, a "lot" of Southern hoppers were painted black. However, when they went to brown, they retained the same size and font used on the black hoppers. Now, I'm trying to find a date(s) for when Southern went to the large, block style.
That sounds right to me, well 1958 according to this link: http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1972/72-7/cres.html Then, in the early 1970s, the passenger units went back to green and white again. Mark
Hay guys I have a couple of Southern hoppers that are silver with red lettering ,i am amusing they are not prototype colors?
