In 1908 Hugh G. Boutell made his first visit to a Maine two footer, the B&SR. Immediately thereafter he submitted an article to “Railway and Locomotive Engineering,” published in the November volume of that year.
Hugh traveled the route many “day trippers” did in the Northeast: A ride out to Bridgton Junction via the Maine Central, a ride up to Harrison on the B&SR, then a leisurely steamboat float back to Portland.
A couple of the highlights of the article, in my opinion, are:
- Hugh captured an image of engine #3 in front of the fourth stall of the Bridgton round house
- According to this image, “Roundhouse at Bridgton,” the forth stall was built far in advance of #7’s arrival
- Locomotive #1 is still in use
- This confirms my belief that #1 was being used (per picture showing it was fitted with an automatic coupler; Jones pg 39), rather than being shoved onto a siding (per Jones pg 70)
With this article in hand, a few insights can be gained:
- The picture of Mel Caswell (Jones pg 224) was likely taken by Boutell on this trip.
- McLin attributes that picture of Mel to Boutell in “24 inch Gauge RR at Bridgton,” pg 20.
- If one can visualize walking around to its right side of #3 in “Roundhouse at Bridgton,” it matches closely with its position with respect to the car shop.
- The photos of Harrison, attributed to Boutell in Jensen’s Short and Narrow Rails #15, are from 1908 or later, not 1901 per the article.
In the end, the title of this post is not a tribute to the Pop music composers for “Miami Vice” or “American Psycho,” but simply a reference to the color of the Standard Oil tank car in 1908: Red.
With the mention of red was it the whole car or just the flat car part or just the the tank . Mike
Mike,
The color reference was to the Tank, as this is would identify company ownership; Standard Oil Company in the case of the B&SR.
It is believed that the flat car frames have always been painted red, as nothing has come to light to date which would imply otherwise. Likewise, the deck or flooring of the car, which was made from Spruce, was left unpainted, otherwise the crew would have been repainting after nearly every load (in its flat/gondola days).
Should you build one, choosing to help preserve the flooring with paint as part of the conversion could easily be accepted, as that tank wasn’t going anywhere once bolted down.
Regards,
Rick
This is interesting this red thing , I know Standard oil is red and a red tank car would be cool . I’ve built 14 and 22 in 7/8 scale and painted them black and was told they were undeniably silver . So I repainted one to silver . I wonder if anyone has ever scratched the paint on 22 to find red , or did they and decide it was primer . It would also be neat to colorize the photo and see what happens
I understand the flat car bit , I don’t see decks lasting at all
I don’t know if I can or know how to post pics to your site but would like to show the cars I’ve built
All the best Mike
Mike,
Red is definitely interesting. As you will hopefully note, I like backing up my statements with a cited reference. As I will be modeling 1907, I get to take the easy way out, now that there is a published, eye-witness reference to the color, and paint my tank red (my opinions are expressed below Wes’ reply). Here’s a great example of another modeler using, of all things, Tru-Scale SOCONY Red to paint his tank car: http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=43870
Regards,
Rick
Others have claimed with some substance that the tanks were never painted either black nor silver, despite apparent photographic evidence. They were probably painted gray, however, because aluminum (silver) paint was not common back then. As I recall, the standard oil red was pretty bright, and may have looked black on panchromatic film.
With regards to aluminum, or any metallic paint, I have not been able to find a reference to their use prior to the early 1920’s, and the reference I found was in the automobile industry (and it was an accident that took off – imagine that).
If I were modeling a later period, let’s say during the popular MeC ownership period, my opinion would be to paint grey with blue SOCONY markings, but I have not located a reference to paint of any color yet. On my 1907 model, I have yet to decide if it will have any Std Oil markings, so whichever I choose will remain an opinion for the time being (Gary Kohler has mentioned a 1905 photo of the tank car, but I do not have it in my collection yet, so I don’t know if it has markings).
Regards,
Rick
This is still interesting . With weather and repaints there still must be a place on the car that was protected enough to survive the last 100 plus years . I go this other site theoldmotor .com and there is a lady who posts colorized photo by using known colours in the photo and figuring out the rest . I googled socony and the corperate red is bright and like all reds of that era would not last long before it went to horrible shade of pink . Now the question is do I biuld another 7/8 car and paint it red or redo my exsiting one ?
First off well done to Rick for finding and publishing a reliable eyewitness statement of the colour in 1908 – as it saves us a lot of interpretation and speculation.
Secondly, in reply to Mike based on my own personal examination of the big tank both at Edaville and at Portland twenty plus years ago, I very much doubt if any original paint has remained on the big tank, not even in any crevices. The tank was thoroughly (and uniformly) rusted in every area that I could see and examine. Nice models though – my suggestion would be to build another big one and paint it red and number it #22 – the correct number according to Rick in another post here.
One reference that I have states that the flat car side sills were painted in Princes Brown – a nice name but not particularly useful unless one is in possession of a contemporary colour chart!
Aluminium paint – I also have been researching the use and introduction of aluminium paints in the US in the 1920’s – and I have my doubts that the B&SR (or more correctly Socony) would have used it on these tanks in the 1920’s.
There is a picture in standard texts (eg Jones pg 234) showing both tank cars in a newly painted livery by the oil tanks that most of my correspondents have interpreted as a version of the Socony Corporate colour schemes of light grey, lettered with either red or blue and possibly varnished.
In the mid 1930’s the lettering on the tanks was quickly over painted when Socony decided to rationalise its oil distribution network, and left Howard Burnham (also a director of the B&H as it was then) with some awkward choices like stay franchised and move, or stay in Bridgton and go independent. He chose the latter, and presumably the ownership of the tanks which up till that point were owned by Socony, led to some sort of a deal to allow them to remain on the B&HR (or otherwise).
All colour pictures that I’ve seen relate to the tanks in this latter overpainted phase and I would define the colour I see as a matt mid grey, and some show evidence of the lettering underneath showing through the weathered overpainting.
Another recent observation is that this original lettering may have survived into the Edaville phase, see Robert MacDonalds “In Quest of Maine Narrow Gauge 1938-1950” page 76.
That’s my $0.02 worth for now,
Terry
Ok Terry just to be a pain in How about light gray with red lettering . Mike
Mike,
I like historical information, and building items to prototype, where the information exists. I also encourage everyone to model as they please, since this is a hobby, and we should get as much enjoyment from it as we can. If you happen to like your silver and black tank cars (especially if Dave painted #14 and you wish to preserve it as is), keep them that way. Red on grey would be great contrast, and blue on grey would stand out, as I don’t recall anything else on the line being blue other than the station signs. Until such time as we learn what may have actually existed, choose the scheme which suits your artistic preference.
Regards,
Rick
Thank you Terry.
To drop an extra penny in the till, I am going to differ on the tank size comment. On the likelihood the tanks were set on a car for good, my belief is that the smaller tank was always present on flat car #22 from the time it was put into service sometime between July 1901 and June 1902 (per the 1902 annual report). The tank has markings on it showing it was manufactured by the Harrisonburg Foundry in 1873, so it was available at the time. Along this line of thought, the larger tank came to the B&SR later, ending up on either #14 or #21. As the US copyright laws do not allow online access to copies of the Railway Register after 1921, I will need to find physical copies, and that is currently hit or miss due to age, location of copies and the number of issues printed within a year’s volume, and all of the railroads did not appear in all of the issues.
Regards,
Rick
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