southern passenger cars


rdeal

rdeal

Member
what color/s - if any - did "southern rail" use in the late '40's and '50's on passenger cars

thanks

rdeal
 
Except for the cars assigned to the steam powered Crescent Limited, all of the SRR passenger cars were Pullman Green. They had black roofs. When the Crescent became a diesel powered streamliner in the late 1930's, the rest of the cars were painted Pullman Green with black roofs.

The streamliners were "silver", (polished stainless steel), with black roofs. When Graham Claytor Jr revitalized the Crescent in the 1960's he added the SRR emblem by the doors of the cars. It should be noted, that the SRR owned two Ex-Wabash dome cars, and because these were smooth sides and not fluted, they were Pullman Green, Black roofs, SRR emblem by the doors and had gold lettering. These were assigned to the Crescent only, and were generally the last car of the train.
 
southern154 said:
Cj,
Were some of the Southern Streamline cars not painted on the roofs, having silver along the entire roof?
Click to expand...

The SRR standard for their streamline cars were silver sides with black roofs. Many models have been made painted solid silver or a silver like color, without the roofs being black, they should be.
 
Good to know, I thought that was weird on the Walthers cars i have compared to the Athearn ones. Is there a spray paint of Pullman Green or Southern Sylvan green around, I would like to use some on coaches and an a-tank for 4501.
 
Floquil used to have a pullman green in a rattle can, and I believe that Scalecoat still does, but you'll need to go on their website to make sure.
 
Hi CJ,
I thought about modeling a Southern Excursion train with the upcoming BLI T&P #610 2-10-4. From what I saw on the videos, the consist of a typical excursion train with that engine was containing a smooth side baggage-coach, many many many smooth side and heavyweight coaches and a heavyweight coach open end observation. I think there was no diner. What cars would you buy to set up such a consist? I think the Atlas Southern heavyweight coaches would be the choice, what do you think? But what about those smooth sided coaches? Have they been Southern cars too? I only remember corrugated side coaches on the Southern but no smooth sided ones. Any recommendation which models could be bought for these?
And about the Crescent Limited: did any manufacturer ever produce that smooth side ex-Wabash dome coach in Southern colors?
 
Daniel,

To my knowledge, no one has made that Wabash car, that I know of, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't been. Most of the cars for excursions, again AFAIK are leased from historical societies, and private individuals. Result was that sometimes between excursions, the layout of the train would change, depending on leases, and such. So really you could get by with just about any cars from any pictures, as long as the car's general appearance is close enough.

Now, about the BLI. If you want to use it for a Southern excursion train, the paint scheme is completely different from the T&P colors. The loco was painted in SRR freight colors, black with graphite smoke and firebox. Don't remember what color the cab roof was. You may want to see if BLI will bring out a SRR version.
 
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just to get it straight in my "pea brain" - - - - a typical Southern Railway passenger train on a regular run / not excursion - F7 - mid '50's -am i correct in saying - passenger cars were or could be black roof with pullman green sides -

if not correct - please correct

thanks - rdeal
 
Almost correct. If the cars were heavyweights, then they were Pullman Green with black roofs. If they were streamliners, they were silver, with black roofs.
 
Cjcrescent said:
Daniel,

To my knowledge, no one has made that Wabash car, that I know of, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't been. Most of the cars for excursions, again AFAIK are leased from historical societies, and private individuals. Result was that sometimes between excursions, the layout of the train would change, depending on leases, and such. So really you could get by with just about any cars from any pictures, as long as the car's general appearance is close enough.

Now, about the BLI. If you want to use it for a Southern excursion train, the paint scheme is completely different from the T&P colors. The loco was painted in SRR freight colors, black with graphite smoke and firebox. Don't remember what color the cab roof was. You may want to see if BLI will bring out a SRR version.
Click to expand...
610's cab roof was red during her Southern days
 
With Champ gone, Walthers no longer making them, I honestly do not know, unless Microscale is going to/is now doing, SRR passenger decals to go with their new SRR steam decals. I guess that I'll have to check one day. I bought some from Champ, the month they were closing up shop. I bought as many as I could of the steam decals, the HN-12 sets, which were generic SRR decals that could go on just about any SRR car, caboose decals, for the wooden cabooses, some passenger decals and just about any other SRR decal that fits my era, pre-1950.

I'm still looking for more HN-12's and look on e-bay for them. That would be the best bet for them.
 
Hi Carey,
yes, BLI will produce the SRR version as well! Here is a drawing from the BLI website:
TP2104SOUCatalog.png
Looks very good! Will be interesting to find out if they will include the brass eagle on the headlight casing as well! But the roof is missing the red color! Maybe they will still correct it before the release. To be honest I´m VERY undecided yet which version to buy. I´m a real T&P fan (it´s my 3rd favorite US road!) and the T&P version of #610 would be a perfect addition for my T&P A-B-A F7 set and freight train which contains around 10 T&P freight cars. But on the other hand I´m also a SRR fan too and I simply love the 610 in her Southern excursion dress! In 1996 I saw a b&w photo of the 610 (not in T&P livery but SRR excursion!) for the very first time in my life, and since then it´s my most favorite US steamer ever! It took me almost 2 years from that moment on to find out that it was originally a T&P and not a SRR steamer! After almost 20 years of waiting I´m so happy that there is finally a good model of this engine coming up, and I really can´t wait to get hold of it although it will be by far the most expensive locomotive I ever bought (didn´t find it under 600 $ yet!). But no matter if T&P or SRR version, it´s gonna be a very tough decision! I also own a VHS cassette released by Feather River Productions called "25 years of Southern steam parts I & II" that contains I think almost 30 min of the 610 in action. After I saw this video for the first time I became even more a fan of this engine. I was especially thrilled when I heard and saw that it was once pulling a 27 car (!) SRR excursion train unassisted! Sooo impressive! So since this point of time a SRR excursion train with the 610 on point would be definetly something that I would like to model too although I must admit that buying the T&P version would be a cheaper project for me because I already own a matching freight train while the SRR passenger cars would still need to be bought. When looking at a typical excursion train pulled by the 610, it seems to me that the baggage coach/combine and the next few following coaches were smooth side cars with 4 wheel trucks, followed by a long string of modernized heavyweight coaches with six wheel trucks and a long string of normal heavyweight coaches plus a heavyweight coach observation at the end. I must remark that these modernized heavyweights look very modern because for me it was only possible to identify them as heavyweight cars because of their six wheel trucks. Here is a video:
[video=youtube;sm4Ld7YS3DU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm4Ld7YS3DU[/video]
When modeling such a train I think the best thing would be taking some Atlas Southern heavyweight coaches and then loads of smooth side coaches by Rivarossi, Walthers or Rapido Trains (depending on how fat your valet is!) and then custom paint and decal them into Southern colors and add six wheel trucks to some cars to make them appear as modernized heavyweight cars. But when it comes to that smooth side baggage coach/combine and heavyweight coach observation I have no idea. Besides the Atlas heavyweight coaches Walthers released some heavyweight cars in the same SRR paint scheme like the Atlas cars, but as far as I remember it was only a diner, a parlor and some sleepers but no coaches, observation or combine. Could be a real challenging project! As well as finding a good auxiliary water tender for the 610! About the Crescent dome car: I guess the same must be done in this case: buy a smooth side dome coach maybe by Walthers and then custom paint and decal it to make it a SRR one!
 
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Cj,
Are there new SRR steam freight decals coming out? I looked on Microscale's website and only saw Passenger engine decals for the Crescent
 
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They currently have a few available, generally interspersed with other road names, and these are mostly more modern cars. Next best bet, would be to have a company like Rail Graphics print you some custom SRR decals. I'll be talking with them soon about doing this very thing. If they are willing to copy a set of Champ's HN-12, SRR decals then I think that this would be a done deal.

But as I said earlier, since they brought out some SRR steam engine decals, maybe, just maybe, their planning to produce some SRR freight and passenger decals.
 
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