Canadian Pacific boxcar color codes

[asciibaron]

i once read that the CP color coded their boxcars for specific applications or service lanes (ie; green for newsprint).

did such a system exist and if so, what was the code and when did it begin?

-steve

[cv_acr]

Not just boxcars, the entire fleet.

Green - newsprint svc. boxcars
Black - hoppers, covered hoppers (and rarely, some gondolas got painted in the black multimark scheme)
Yellow - insulated boxcars, cabooses
Silver - refridgerated boxcars
Red - standard colour. boxcars, flatcars, gondolas, locomotives, passenger cars (silver with red nameboard stripe to match stainless cars)

(The above of course applies to the Multi-Mark scheme)

[Ryan87]

CP's Colourful freight cars began with the introduction of the "Multimark" theme in 1968. (mind you the "Pine Tree" Boxcars came in 1964) Canadian Pacific Limited Chose different colours for each of its subsidiaries, CP Transport got blue, CP Ships got green, CP Air  was orange & Action Red for CP Rail.

CP Rail took this one step further assigning different colours to freight cars. General Service Boxcars, Flat cars & Gondolas were red, Newsprint service boxcars were green, Insulated Boxcars yellow, Reefers silver, Covered Hoppers & Tank cars black & Cabooses yellow.

Now this was by no means a rule (not for very long at least) there were aluminum covered hoppers, coal gondolas were changed from red to black and boxcar red & gray became more and more common as time went on.

a story often told is that the locomotives were originally supposed to be black with a red multimark (like the covered hoppers), but when the ad company presented it the brass at CP said, "We paid you $500,000.00 to come up with black?" So, the ad company reversed the colours.

[asciibaron]

CP Transport blue



CP Rail multi-color cars



source is a really crappy book from 1982 on the history of North American railroads.  it does have a few oddities, like a diagram of the Pacific Rail system that never came to be as such (UP mergers).

-steve

[cv_acr]

CP's Colourful freight cars began with the introduction of the "Multimark" theme in 1968. (mind you the "Pine Tree" Boxcars came in 1964)

No, the pine tree cars were built in 1967. There was a short period there (for about a year) where they started the colourful bit with the script scheme before creating the multimark. A few cabooses were repainted bright red with yellow ends, an order of insulated boxcars came in a yellow colour and the order of boxcars in the "pine tree" paint scheme.

[Ryan87]

No, the pine tree cars were built in 1967.

Oops! Mea Culpa I keep thinking about the photo in the Morrant book dated 1964 (wrongly dated)
Thanks Chris...

[asciibaron]

any pictures of the Pine Tree scheme?

-steve

[Ryan87]

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cp/cp81042akg.jpg

The green on the patches is the later Action Green, not the original colour.

[cv_acr]

This paint scheme was only ever applied to this one series of boxcars. (CP 80967-81216). These cars built by NSC in 1967; they match the Proto1000 HO Scale newsprint boxcars discussed in another thread last week (although the CP cars had a different underframe cushioning).

[sirenwerks]

Ryan,

What's the date on that photo? I really like that scheme and would love to have one car like it on the layout, but somehow I doubt they lasted into 2006.

[Ryan87]

Bryan,

That photo was around 1980 according to the site...

The cars are still around however they are rare, I think this past year I've only seen one (and that's counting visits to seven CP served Paper Mills  )

here's a shot from 2003 http://freight.railfan.ca/cprail/cp80986.jpg

[cv_acr]

I've never seen one personally, and I've seen lots of old CPR green 50' boxcars. So they're fairly rare. I did manage to see one of the old Hawker-Siddeley cars in original brown paint and script lettering (remarked for QGRY) in 2004 though. I've seen photos of at least one or two others in old paint from a similarly recent timeframe.