SF Blue Goose Pictures?

I don't know what you mean by Blue Goose passenger cars. The Blue Goose was a 4-6-4 locomotive and had nothing to do with passenger cars. The color photos of SF passenger cars that I have seem to show the window shades as a light gray, but I am not sure of the color.

Stuart Sabatini Palm Coast, FL

shades as a

The Blue Goose engine

Bill Your links show a toy train manufactuers invention, not real passenger cars. None of my dozens of SF books show real passenger cars in that paint scheme. Also the model locomotive is no where near correct. The model is of a coal fired locomotive, the real one was oil fired.

Stuart sabatini Palm Coast, FL

The Blue Goose, 4-6-4 #3460, was Santa Fe only Streamlined steam locomotive and it was used with the "normal" passenger cars. There never was any passenger cars painted in matching colors, except those dreamed up by "model" manufacturers wanting to create a matching set. As nice as they may look they are in no way prototypical.

The model of 3460 by Rivarossi is a "Santa Fe'ised" repaint of their New York Central prototype and is a lot smaller than the actual locomotive was. A correct model is unfortunately only available in brass. The Rivarossi model looks and runs good and it's your railroad so use it if you like it!

For easy access to online ressources regarding Santa Fe check the pages of Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society at:

Kind regards Tom Larsen Holte, Denmark

passenger cars.

Well then, if there's no prototype to follow, I guess the answer to the OP's concern is very simple: Make them any color you want; you can't be "wrong."

-- Bill McC.

The passenger cars only exist in the model world. The ATSF never had passenger cars that color. Would have been cool though. Make 'em whatever looks good to you.

Greg

As several others have responded, the ATSF did not have 2-tone blue cars. However, the ATSF did run many cars in the Pullman pool two-tone gray scheme which might be a good prototype for the non-prototype cars.

But the OP raises a good question - what color were passenger car window shades?

All the pix of heavyweights I can find are B&W and show shades of a dark color. My vague recollection is that they were a dark olive green, just like the room darkening roller shades in my old grammar school (it was always a sign of a good break when they came down - maybe a film strip, or better when the Bell & Howell 16 mm was rolled in!!). Of course RR shades were always thicker two-layer construction - were they dark olive to match the Pullman green body, or for the same room darkening quality? Were the insides a different color to match the car interior? Most of my experience was with the shades in the old Illinois Central Pullman built electric suburban cars - I recall these as being dark olive inside and out.

The color pix I have of lightweight cars are mostly of stainless steel cars, and they show a neutral gray color widow shade exterior color. Was this used to match the tone of the unpainted metal? Were other exterior shade colors used on painted smooth side cars? My recollections as a passenger are that the inside of the shades tended to complement the car interior color scheme, and sometimes included patterns. Some photos show Venetian blinds in cars instead of solid shades, although the blinds seem to be used most often in observation and lounge cars.

I recall that the typical color for roller shades in older buildings (Design Preservation era), when room darkening was not required (as in office buildings), was a mid tan or buff color, which can be modeled nicely with masking tape. My impression is that this color was not often used on passenger cars.

Can anyone refine these observations? Some thing else to check out next time I visit an RR museum. Gary Q

Passenger car shades. ATSF LW Super Chief and maybe all LWs were silver.