Union Pacific Passenger Car Paint and Lettering

Dark Olive (No. 1), used for "Bodies, vestibules, outside of end doors, window sash and screens, vestibules handrails, corner and side door handholds."

Olive Enamel (No. 2), used for "Trucks (except wheels, axles and brake rigging), platforms and steps, battery boxes."

Black Varnish (No. 7), used for "Handholds and similar outside iron work except Vestibule Handrails and corner and Side Door Handholds"

Carbon Black (No. 13), used for "Roofs, running boards, underframes, all iron and steel underneath car except axles and battery boxes."

Gold Leaf (No. 18), used for "Lettering exterior of all cars except express refrigerator."

The proper color name for UP (and presumably SP) is "Dark Olive". As far as I know, the UP color standard was unchanged up through the 1950s.

The way UP Dark Olive and Pullman Green were mixed is with just yellow and black pigments (hard to believe, but true). So, Dark Olive had more black than Pullman Green. Which color was used on sleepers after UP purchased them from Pullman is a good question, which I have not researched.

All three UP schemes (Dark Olive, Two-Tone Gray, and Yellow and Gray) were applied to both heavyweight and lightweight passenger cars. Era and type of service determined which was used.

In the late 1940s, UP streamliners were Yellow and Gray, overnight trains were Two-Tone Gray, and day trains were Dark Olive. That means lots of cars would have been Dark Olive up until they were painted Yellow and Gray, following the official change in 1952.

Two exceptions to the above would be that the City of St. Louis, definitely a Streamliner, was painted in TTG. The Kansan (Train 39/40) was a day train, and it had head-end equipment that was TTG.

In its early days the COSL had heavyweight equipment as well as lightweight equipment. Some sleepers, the diners, lounges and some head end cars were heavyweights. It was first TTG then went yellow when all lightweight equipment was assigned. The lightweight TTG and any remaining lightweight green cars went to yellow to help cover this train and the other city trains when daily service was started. At that point the COSL became a true streamliner. Also many new lightweight cars were bought about the same time (all yellow) to boost the City fleet for daily service.

Eventually everything not yet yellow became yellow. During the short transition, one could find green, TTG and yellow mixed on most anything except COSF, COD, COP and COLA which were all yellow to begin with. Heavyweights and lightweights were mixed as well on non City trains. It may not have happened every day but the published photos showing this are too numerous to quote here.

According to UP drawing 356-CB-22363, issued 1-10-39, "All outside lettering on car body to be Dulux Imitation Gold Enamel ..." This was the drawing that introduced UP Gothic lettering to Dark Olive passenger cars.

DuPont Dulux Imitation Gold was their paint color #95-020, and UP later named it C.S. 22 - No.189 Gold Striping Enamel.

Research has not yet found exactly when in the late 1930s the transition was made from C.S. 22 - No.18 Gold Leaf to Dulux Imitation Gold paint for lettering on Dark Olive passenger cars. But I believe Dulux Imitation Gold was also used for Common Standard Roman lettering on some Dark Olive UP passenger cars.

So, any UP passenger car painted C.S. 22 - No.1 Dark Olive that has Gothic lettering should have it done in Dulux Gold paint.

I just received the Pullman builder's specs on Lot 6510, the Challenger cars. These came from Illinois Railway Museum via Ted Anderson.

The original specification called out Dark Olive on these cars, but the specification was revised as follows:

Exterior color as: Exterior-Synthetic enamel; to be Pullman standard shade of green color as used on conventional steam equipment; to be applied to sides, skirts and ends. Following manufactures to be used:

DuPont Dulux "standard green" on 28 chair (mixed passenger) cars
Sherwin-Williams "standard green" on five dining cars
Glidden "standard green" on five kitchen-dorm cars
Thresher Varnish "standard green" on 12 women's chair cars

(Note that different manufacturers likely had slight variations of "standard green.")

Exterior lettering to be Imitation gold, DuPont #95-020 Dulux

Scarlet striping color (DuPont #95-055 Dulux) to be used for body of letters in the words "The Challenger".

These cars also had multiple interior color schemes, from multiple manufactures.

The specification also calls out an 11' wheel-base for the 6-wheel truck under the center of the articulated diner. UP drawings say 11' 10". Anybody have an explanation for this difference?

In the book, SP Passenger Cars Vol. 4, at the top of page 382, there is a photo of the COSF at Alameda on 6/14/41. The caption says, "By the date of this photo, however, the Leaf Brown areas (of SP 10310) had been repainted in the new Harbor Mist Gray color." Exactly when the COSF cars had their brown areas repainted to gray has not been resolved in my research.

The four new 4-4-2s and single 10-5 sleepers were incorporated into the 're-equipped' 8th Train beginning on 6/17/41 (per Pullman Lines 4331 and 4332). Since these five cars were delivered in the yellow and gray colors, one would assume the balance of the train was painted to match, but maybe not. SP 10310 was replaced in this train by the new 1941 EMBARCADERO (2nd), which was not completed until 6/17/41. This new car probably entered service shortly thereafter, possibly the train's next 'sailing,' and I wonder if the UP (or SP) would have justified the cost of repainting SP tavern car 10310 for perhaps just a couple of round trips.

Keep in mind that UP Dorm-Kitchen/Diner 5104 continued to operate in the 8th Train until being replaced by the 1937 articulated CS-Kitchen/Diner off the COLA 7th Train. This car was renamed MISSION DOLORES/PRESIDIO (2nd) and was not made available for shopping until the delivery of new COLA cars MISSION INN and BILTMORE, both completed on or around 6/18/41. It would have taken a few days or more to repaint and refurbish the COLA's 1937 CS-Kit/Diner for the COSF 8th Train, so these cars probably did not enter COSF service until early or mid-July 1941. It seems unlikely that UP would have repainted the brown areas on DK/Diner 5104 to the new gray colors for less than a month's service, but this has yet to be verified.

The issue of when the 1937 COSF cars were repainted from yellow & brown to yellow & gray remains a mystery to me.

Lettering on all the early streamliners up to 1939 was gold leaf with a 1/8" black edging. Gold leaf was the standard for UP passenger car lettering, and the black edging was used because the gold leaf didn't contrast much with the Armour Yellow sides. Color photos seem to be nonexistent.

I had not noticed Dubin's comment about "silver" on page 132 (and 133). I know of no documentation for that and suspect it is an error derived from the "imitation silver" lettering applied to the early TTG cars on the UP.

The replacement 8th train in August 1939 seems to be the first actual use of Red lettering (with a wider black edging) on passenger cars.

Locos are another story, as Black edged Gold Leaf changed to solid Black, changed to Black edged Red, with the additional complication of the lettering in the Red banners.

I just checked the back sides of the Car Construction Records for all 15 cars in Lot 6525 (The sleeping cars for the Seventh and Eighth Trains were all delivered in December 1937.) That's where a car's shopping history is spelled out. None of the 14 survivors (TWIN PEAKS was lost in the Harney wreck) shows a shopping correlated to a 1940 repaint. In fact, seven of the cars apparently weren't shopped by Pullman until 1944 and 1945. The CCRs show no-code Pullman shoppings in the summer of 1941 for the six cars involved in the renaming shuffle, plus a no-code shopping of SAN FERNANDO in September 1941. The only unusual entry is an "SA" (Special Accident) shopping of SAN DOMINGUEZ  from 1/2/41 to 3/14/41. I presume it was involved in an altercation in late 1940?

The temptation is to say the UP did the repainting from brown to HMG, but I don't think we can say that for sure. I think that particular repainting was done "on the fly", as it were. Two citations: I'll have to do some major excavation in my studio to find it, but back in the early years of THE STREAMLINER, a sales brochure included with one of the subscriber mailings showed a Kindig (I think) in-service color photo of the COD. The roof is HMG, the pilot and skirts are brown. That tells me the equipment was being repainted piecemeal between runs, and either Pullman or the UP could have done that.

Second citation is an old copy of INDUSTRIAL REVIEW I picked up at an antique shop in Kalona, Iowa about 15 years ago. That was the company magazine of the Industrial Tape Corporation, manufacturer of Permacel industrial tapes. The issue is undated but obviously, from the content, published during World War II. The feature article shows how Pullman used Permacel paper tape at the Calumet works to mask passenger cars for fast turnaround spray paint jobs. There are five pages of text and photos showing how to mask, paint and letter SAN DOMINGUEZ, including one photo showing the car completely covered with Kraft paper! The article is written from the perspective of a visit to the Calumet works.

But the interesting thing is the two-page center spread (which is in addition to the five pages of the article). There sits a full-color 11 x 17 artist's rendering of FERRY BUILDING, apparently based on a photograph considering the access ladder perched at the non-vestibule end and the accuracy of the detail around the exposed diaphragm. The thing is, this 1941 car is shown with BROWN, not HMG, roof & skirts. I doubt the Industrial Tape Company prepared that illustration. My opinion, and I'm only speculating here, is that the UP provided the illustration, the intent was to have the 1941 trains delivered in yellow & brown, but sometime during the construction of those cars - and possibly after the delivery of FERRY BUILDING (in June 1941) - the railroad decided to switch to HMG. Then it was a matter of scrambling to get the roofs & skirts of the earlier equipment repainted to match.

As an aside, the cover photo on the magazine is a gorgeous (and no doubt UP-provided) full color shot of the entire 1937 COLA in yellow & brown with gold lettering posed by the row of eucalyptus trees at Burlingame.

Effective immediately, all future repainting of exterior of Union Pacific passenger cars including sleeping cars will be done in the yellow and red streamline train colors and the two tone gray and olive green colors will be discontinued.

It will be necessary to prepare new painting and lettering drawings for some of the older passenger cars which have not previously been painted in the streamliner yellow color and prints of these drawings will be distributed as quickly as they are completed.

Please refer to Mr. Alfreds' mailgram February 1, 1952 in connection with repainting exterior of all passenger cars in the yellow and red streamline colors.

These instructions stated that pending the issuance of new drawings covering the painting of head end cars, the lettering "Baggage", Horse-Auto-Baggage" and "Storage Mail" should be eliminated, but that lettering "United States Mail, Railway Post Office" and "Railway Express Agency" should be retained.

It has been brought to our attention that a head end car recently repainted yellow was lettered "Horse-Auto-Baggage" which should have been eliminated when the car was repainted. Please handle with your car forces so that these instructions will not again be overlooked.

In connection with previous instructions relative to the painting of passenger train cars yellow, this program has now progressed to the point where sufficient cars to paint are becoming more difficult to find, and it is imperative that Mechanical Department forces at each terminal be on the lookout and report to this office by mailgram of any car which is still gray in color so that arrangements can be made to release the cars to be sent to terminals where painting is accomplished.

There would have been a number of TTG cars/trains through Ogden, etc. The only "City" train in TTG was the "City Of St. Louis" which was originated with mixed heavyweight and lightweight equipment, but some other non-Streamliner trains carried TTG.

Passenger steam locomotives were painted to match the trains, including all the 4-8-4s, many 4-8-2s, and a number of 4-6-2s. As steam gave way to diesel, early passenger power showed up, FM "Erie- builts", E6, E7, ALCo PAs, and so on. The UP bought their first small batch of E8s in 1950, so these may have pulled some TTG equipment but were usually used on the Streamliners.  By the time the E9s came (1954) there were few TTG cars active.

Of the 50 "Pacific" series sleepers bought by the UP, the first 25 (alphabetically) were painted UP Streamliner colors (Armour Yellow & Harbor Mist Gray). The second 25 (alphabetically) were painted UP 2-stripe Two-Tone Gray, when new.

The reason for the UP going to the two tone gray scheme was do to a general make over of its non Streamliner First Class overnight trains in the post World War era. At war's end, Pullman was reworking its cars due to poor condition of equipment with lack of maintenance during the war. To get the work done, Pullman went into a "get the work done ASAP mood". One of the short cuts was the newer two stripe paint scheme. Art Riordan points out that some of these car started showing up in the first months of 1946. To match equipment and to give UP trains a good new general look was the reason the UP scheme looked so much like the Pullman scheme.

First of the UP fleet for this new look was the "San Francisco Overland" and "Los Angeles Limited" -- the two premier non-Streamliner trains. Because of its history on the railroad, the "Overland" was painted in the letterboards of cars assigned to the "SF Overland Limited" and later on, to the City of St. Louis name to that train. Through trains to the Northwest also were reworked. The transcontinental Pullman sleepers were just a part of this Overland operation, but not the sole reason for it. A general rule of thumb was that any overnight train was redone in the two-tone scheme with the local/day trains remaining in green.

It should also be pointed out that at first the two-tone steam locomotive had yellow stripes. If they were used to power Streamliner trains, the railroad figured it would match up better. The main backup steam power for the Streamliners were the two yellow and brown Streamlined steam engines: 2906 and 7002 in 1936. When the 49er came on in 1937 as the heavyweight service to San Francisco on non-Streamliner days, these engines were used on it. In 1942 these two engines lost their Streamlining. By 1949 the railroad had enough diesels on hand to protect the Streamliners. Then on those engines in two-tone gray, the stripes became silver to match the two-tone passenger equipment.

According to Tom Madden's Pullman Car Construction Records site no cars remained in green beyond 1952, with all cars receiving UP paint by the end of 1952. The only cars to remain in TTG until retirement were three of the Plan 3585 10 Section - 1 Drawing Room - 2 Compartment sleepers which were repainted in Armour Yellow cars were repainted once again into TTG, Lake Hazen in October '55, Lake Waccamaw in November '55 and Lake Dickey in January '56. All three lasted into the 1960s under lease to Pullman but there is no indication these cars were repainted once again before being withdrawn and retired... Lake Dickey being withdrawn from Pullman lease 20Jun61, while the other two cars were withdrawn from lease on 24Mar65. These were the only former Pullman sleepers to wear TTG beyond 1952, and as mentioned, they were repainted from yellow. Lake Waccamaw became MW 906045 in Apr66, according to your report, while the other two apparently were scrapped.

Yes the Union Pacific did have a couple of white passenger cars. To mark the 100th Anniversary of the University of Nebraska College of Medicine in 1981 the railroad painted two baggage cars to tour across the state of Nebraska. The first white car is 904289, a former postal storage 5761, the middle white car is 904302, former baggage 6314, and the end yellow car is #203 the diesel instruction car, former 5341 coach. The two white cars had display items marking the history of UNMC and promoting the college; the #203 was a support car in which connections were made for power with entrance in the cars vestibule and exit by the stairway from the end of the one white baggage car. Here is the traveling display set at Columbus (Nebraska) on Golden Spike Day – May 10, 1981. The tour lasted for just a couple months, and was a donation by the Union Pacific for UNMC and was given the backing of then UP President John Kenefick.