Greetings! My first post . . . Question: when PRR changed the paint scheme (letting/color/etc) on their cabin cars (cabooses), did they bring all them into the shops and repaint them all to the new scheme or was it only for the newly produced/rebuilt? Might you continue to see old cabins in service with the old schemes? Thank you, NAD
I don't know for certain drums147, but on a road the size of the PRR, it would have been unlikely that uniform paint prevailed at any time across their vast fleet of cabin cars. At any given time, the PRR was changing lettering size, font, logos, roof and cupola color, along with variations in red carbody paint. The number of variations is dizzying. I think that your guess that old paint and new paint were routinely seen together is a good one.
Like Hardcoaler, I assume the cabins were assigned to specific districts, regions, or whatever, thus would have been repainted based on overhauls, usage, availability, budget, etc., not from headquarters. Considering the Pennsy was acknowledged to be the largest in the world during the first half of the 20th century, anything as minor as repainting a cabin probably would have been delegated to the local areas. Considering the preceding was written by someone who grew up riding the New York Central, usually behind steam, please accept it with a grain of salt.
I am an SP guy, I can answer these questions about the Southern Pacific....but my answers would be start dates. I have seen pictures of Southern Pacific caboose with the pre-1946 lettering in 1950, and a black widow F7 in 1972...14 years after that paint scheme was replaced. I bet that you can model 2 schemes and be correct for a certain era.
On companies the size of the PRR in its heyday and the larger carriers of today it will be a very cold day in Hades if or when every item of identity of the company is to the same specification of paint color and iconography. New boss comes into control and he wants 'X' to be 'his vision' of the company. Since it takes 15 - 20 or more years until equipment 'needs' to be repainted - how many top leaders of company's last that long? Really, how many company's last that long. PRR didn't last. Penn Central didn't last. ConRail didn't last. CSX and NS will they last?
