Zephyr Blue & Gray (or White) Paint Scheme...

I'd like to revisit this subject. A while back I believe Gordon Mott was wondering if there were ever enough Blue and Gray passenger passenger cars at any one time to have a whole matched consist. I've been running a very informal "survey" from photos. Any time I saw photos of a Frisco train with B/G cars, I tried to see how many were in the train. I never ran across a train with more than four B/G cars. And that was in a train of nine cars. Summing up, there were B/G cars in many passenger train photos (From one to four), but never as many as half were Blue/Gray. One possible exception" in Arthur Dubin's More Classic Trains there's a photo of the Meteor sitting in the station with what seems to be a complete B/G consist spoiled only by an express boxcar coupled behind the engine. Also no one seems to believe that any Pullmans were ever painted in that scheme. FYI, my "survey" didn't include the Firefly and it's dedicated cars.

Tom

 

I do not know if there was ever a complete B&G passenger consist, but there are approximately 100 car that were painted B&G listed in a booklet from the Frisco Railroad Museum. If you do not have the book E-mail me at rennapper@centurylink.net and I will E-mail it to you.
Richard

 

Thanks--I have it aleady. I think there's also a similiar version in the scanned All Aboard magazines from the former Frisco Museum.

Tom

 

I think it is pretty certain that there were never any Pullmans painted in B&G which is somewhat curious given the Frisco's effort to paint as many other cars in B&G as they did, and to paint 4500-02 to match. The Pullman Company was certainly not adverse to painting their cars into a specific railroad scheme, though they charged the railroad for doing it. Pullmans were specifically assigned, and the assignments stayed fairly stable, so it was not a situation where a railroad would have a car painted in their scheme and then never see it again. It's too bad, a solid B&G-painted Meteor behind a 4500 would have been a pretty impressive sight. I guess it will be up to someone to do it in HO if we are ever to see such.

Gordon

 

Did this good looking paint scheme last into early diesel period use? Many Thanks, Rick

 

There were a few cars co-existing into the diesel era. Looks like 1955 was when the last B&G was repainted to Pullman green. I guess it was possible that in the 1948-55 period, there could have been a train "someplace on the Frisco" that had Pullman green, blue and gray and red and silver cars all in one train?? I think we have a photo posted somewhere here on the forum where a Texas Special engine is pulling just such a train...

Tom

 

Thanks Tom! This was my guess but like hearing it from someone besides myself! Again much Thanx

Ricky|-|

 

I finally found the thread where the photo of the Texas Special engine pulling some B & G head end cars was posted. It was likely a break in run of the streamline engines on the "Will Rogers." So a modeler could run a Texas Special engine pulling the B&G cars and be "prototypically correct" OR he could run them any way he'd like since it's MODEL railroading after all...
http://www.frisco.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=10476&d=1268999103

Tom

 

It certainly appears that the white marker light is lit, indicating this is operating as an extra which makes the photo even more interesting.

Gordon

 

Hi Gordon--I think you spotted those extra lights when that picture was first posted (I'm having trouble finding older posts), what was your thought about the train displaying the lights? There were a lot of photos in the day of the Texas Special and Meteor engines at Tulsa (Thought to be on the Will Rogers), do you think this was one of those or something else? The cars appear to be baggage cars, but an extra (Like a troop move) could have baggage cars?? Also would they want to use newly arrived engines on an extra like a troop or football special?

 

I think it might have been. I don't remeber where it came from?? Internet? Or posted here earlier, not sure?? But all the other (Mostly at Tulsa) pictures of the Meteor and Texas Special engines on the non-stramliner break-in runs were on the Will Rogers in Oklahoma. The Will Rogers was a night train until 1956 so any daylight pictures would probably been someplace in Oklahoma.

Tom

 

As an FYI, Don talked about the blue color for the Firefly being the C&O Enchantment Blue, a very close match. I found a resource for 8 oz. spay enamal of this color. It is the same as the Texas Special Red I found at the hobby shop. It is manufactured by Charles C, Wood & Co. These are paints to match the old Ives, American Flyer, Lionel , and other Toy train makers of the past. It retails for $9.00 a can. That really helps on my large scale Firefly project! If you type "Charles c. wood paint" in your browser, it should guide you there.
Dan

As an edit, the Spray cans are 16 oz, not 8 as I first posted. I am waiting confirmation from the manufacturer that the C&O blue is the " enchantment" blue.

 

Makes me wonder what the Frisco would have looked like if they had retained these colors instead of going with the red... not as bright but would bet it would have made for some beautiful equipment.

 

B&O was also an occupant of the St. Louis Union Station with blue (And gray) passenger cars.

Tom G.

 

I have seen two different paint schemes for the firefly three car set in black and white photos but what color were they blue/white, blue/gray or blue silver ? thanks mktjames

 

The roofs and trucks were a medium gray (The Frisco called it "dove" gray), the carbodies were Zephyr Blue (Frisco's term) kind of a B&O blue (more or less) and the stripes along the sides were an "off white" (I forget what the Frisco called it). The white didn't exactly match the stainless steel sides of the Firefly engines, although the match looked pretty good in b&w photos. Just by random shuffling, there might have been a possibility of an all blue-gray-white train, but the only one close was the Meteor train in the Arthur Dubin book.

Tom G.