"Train carriage colours" Topic

Hello
I have bought a couple of the 6mm Irregular Miniatures train sets and I was hoping that someone could suggest an appropriate colour or colours to paint the passenger cars and goods wagons. I am assuming that the locomotives and tenders should be black or dark grey. I am not necessarily looking to replicate the livery of any particular railway company, I just want to have something that looks vaguely appropriate in an ACW context. I will be using the trains in eastern and western theatre scenarios.
Thnak you

Brown and black were pretty common car colors. Engines and tenders could be black, or they could be red, blue or green, or they could be black with a colored cab and cow catcher, with the tender in the matching color i.e., a green engine with a green tender.

For generic stick with basic black for engines, and Boxcar Red (reddish brown) for rolling stock.

For some more ideas try here:

link

Yellow ochre was also a common railcar color. Passenger cars were often painted more brightly – bright red, yellow, and various shades of green and blue. Lettering was in contrasting colors. And keep in mind that the roads didn't allow their rolling stock off their own track in those days, so don't mix and match.

There have been extensive discussions on what locos, passenger and freight cars looked like in the U.S. in the 1860s on Yahoo's EarlyRails and Civil War Railroad sites, but rather than go into a long winded discussion I'll simply post some sites where you can view some pictures:

smrtrains.com
usmrr.blogspot.com
leviathan63.com
borail.org (this museum covers from the 1830s to probably the 1960s)

Also check out Tom Radice's Western & Atlantic video on Youtube

Thank you very much.

I will go through all of this and make some decisions. For anyone else doing this period in 6mm, I can recommend Miniature World Maker's railway tracks and Leven Miniatures do some nice block houses.

Thanks again.

About the mix and match. If I remember correctly, Sherman began confiscating any rolling stock that entered his department in early 1864 for Army use. If that is the case, I'm sure you would certainly see mixed cars and rolling stock.

Sherman began confiscating any rolling stock that entered his department in early 1864 for Army use.

Yes, but they would have the original owner's markings painted out and USMRR (United States Military Railroad) markings substituted. So still no mixing of company markings.

The problem in the South was that almost every single railroad had it's own track gauge, and not every locomotive or piece of rolling stock could be used everywhere.

It's one of the reasons that Longstreet's orps took so long to move west. Every time they ran out of one railroad's trackage, they had to physically unload everything and reload it onto the new railroad's equipment. That took time, and slowed everything down.

Amost all Northern rail lines had, by 1860, picked a standard gauge so that everyone's trains could run on everyone else's rails. There were still some exceptions, and also the narrow gauge and/or "2-footers", but by & large things were a lot more efficient in the northern states.

Also, a great deal of the track down south was VERY lightweight. None of today's rolling stock, and especially not any of today's locomotives would be able to run on it. The rails would bend and collapse. This is why teams of men could so easily bend them after heating.

In fact, SOME rail lines used track where the rails consisted of heavy timber on edge, with iron strips mounted on the tops.

So in the South, it was almost impossible to use one railroad's equipment on another railroad's trackage.

The Southern gauge difference problem is largely overstated. It was possible to travel from New Orleans, Mobile and Memphis to Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington NC, Richmond and Norfolk Va without ever leaving 5 foot gauge roads. It was possible to travel from Alexandria Va and the Shenandoah Valley through Richmond to Wilmington and Charlotte NC without leaving standard gauge roads.

There were places where roads of different gauges came together, such as Lynchburg, Richmond and Petersburg Virginia and Wilmington NC. The South was not alone in this. In the north there was standard gauge, Pennsy gauge, 4'10" lines in New Jersey and Ohio and 6' gauge lines. Hooker's forces moving west in 1863 went from standard gauge to 4'10" gauge to standard gauge and then to 5' gauge. It went smoother for Hooker than for Longstreet because the northern roads had greater capacity and were in better shape, plus the move was better organized. In Kentucky the roads were 5 foot gauge, which simplified matters for the USMRR in the west. Once cars crossed the Ohio the USMRR was able to operate on the same gauge throughout the theatre.

The rap on problems with Southern railroad gauges probably stems from late in the war when Lee's army was relying on a supply line involving gauge changes at Danville Va and Charlotte NC. This would probably have been less of a problem if US forces hadn't cut the standard gauge line south of Petersburg. However a greater problem for the Confederacy was the lack of physical connections between roads.

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One more good site is: link
Yes I know it a yahoogroup, but very good info and pictures of R/R layouts.