B&M passenger cars: green? maroon? HELP!

Why the RI paint scheme? Probably unless you worked in the marketing or purchasing department, nobody knows for sure, but, if you follow the timeline, the maroon bow-wave striped diesels came on the property years before the Pullman-Standard streamlined cars. The first passenger diesels (3800-3804, IIIRC) were in the same bow-wave scheme as the early freight units, except for spreading the bow stripes apart about a foot or two to allow room for the Minuteman logo, and dropping the wings on the sides. This brings you to about 1946-47. I guess that, at this point, the B&M tried the RI scheme in an attempt to coordinate with the stainless steel sided passenger cars. If this were true, however, one does wonder why the RI style back end was white and not silver, but that discussion is second only to the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. At any rate, it appears the the RI scheme was, in technical railroad terms, an "oops!" - maybe because they were "all dirt, all the time" - because after 3805-3815, again IIRC, they went back to the bow wave. I believe both schemes were designed by GM. Certainly the bow-wave was, because it also showed up on the D&RGW and Lehigh Valley.

PBM

Yes, the first B&M and MEC E units were delivered in the "Rock Island" scheme to coordinate with the then-on-order Pulman-Standard passenger cars. The "white vs. aluminum" may never be answered, but a friend of mine custom-painted an N-scale E unit for me using aluminum (to match the Con-Car passenger cars she also painted). I don't think the switch back to the freight-style solid maroon body was all due to cleanliness; I believe there was so much standard maroon or green pasenger equipment on both roads that pure sets of E unit + PS cars were fairly rare. The publicity department probably didn't get the effect they were hoping for.

My $0.02.



RLS

I believe the switch to maroon was due to the fact the B&M purchashed some cars from the Pennsylvania RR. They liked the look and the color was changed for future purchases and re-paintings.

Duane Goodman

A thought... what if they stuck with the freight scheme of black with red/white stripes?? The red would have matched the maroon cars... sort of... especially when dirty. But if McGinnis painted passenger cars bright blue... well... I don't know about that one...

It's with some relief that I can state that I am not old enough to have seen any B&M coaches in green, but I do remember a range of reds. If you take a look at Carl Byron's Boston & Maine Trackside, you'll see a brighter red on some of the Osgood Bradley lightweights and deeper tones on the older coaches. Unwashed coal soot and ALCO soot would also darken things a touch. As far as the PRR connection, the PRR --and NW -- terminology was Tuscan Red, and starting a bit after when Penn Central provided commuter service out of South Station, ex-PRR P-70's provided memorable -- in a non-positive sense -- rides to numbers of Southside commuters.
Given the B&M's brief early-20th-century takeover by the NH, green on the B&M probably wouldn't be Pullman, but NH Hunter Green, less olive than Pullman, but more olive than later MEC.

The short life of the "Rock Island" scheme as applied to the B&M and MEC 1946 E-7s has been discussed a bunch on the [email protected] list. The consensus is that the aluminum (another thing they have a consensus on) paint faded very quickly and EMD supplied new paint for a repaint that duplicated the delivery scheme of the B&M's two 1945 E-7s.

OK kids:
http://www.rapidotrains.com/schemes_ho/bm1.html

Note that the skirts on the B&M cars they've shown aren't right - the little curved part between the step and the truck opening is right for a New Haven car from the late '50s, when the mid-car skirts were removed, till the end. B&M cars never had any skirts.

It's possible since it is artwork that the actual HO car will be correct. The company seems big in details...

If you haven't yet tried the B&MRRHS forum, it might be worthwhile. The skirts were on for at least a while in red/maroon paint. I think if any B&M lightweights were delivered in green, the skirting would have been on initially, as well. If you do check the B&MRRHS forum, there can be a lag sometimes between query and response(s).

My reference is The Official Pullman-Standard Library, Vol. 10 Northeast Railroads (Railway Production Classics 1991). Builders' photos of American Flyer coaches delivered to the B&M in 1937 (p. 118) and all 3 BAR car types (pp. 136 - 142) show they were delivered without any skirts.

jbvb, NellsChoo, et al.-
I don't have the cited Pullman reference book, but if the photo shows O-B lightweight B&M 4606 at Worcester on 10/18/37, that shot also appears in B&M Bulletin, Vol. 4, No. 2, copyright 1974, on P.15, in a short article by LeRoy C. Hutchinson. The article, "The Boston and Maine's 'American Flyer' Coaches," states that the 1935 and 1937 lots were both painted "coach green," but there is no clarification if that is the same as classic Pullman Green. The article further states that 1943 is when the repainting into red occurs.
On the rear cover is a winter photo of the southbound Day White Mountains Express bythe only Dr. Phil (Hastings, to those of insufficient years), showing O-B lightweights prominently on the right-hand side of the picture. The photo's caption, appearing inside the issue's front cover, states in part, "The consist included several of the New Haven's Osgood-Bradley 'American Flyer' coaches. unlike the B&M's cars of the same design, the New Haven's had skirts below their sides which extended to within 22 inches of the rail." A thorough look at the side of one of the coaches discloses "New Haven." To those seeing only black-and-white photos of New Haven lightweights on the B&M, particularly from an angle, the myth may have grown that the B&M rostered skirted lightwights.
(This typing may not be APA, MLA, or OSHA-compliant -- my little fingers hurt --, but it is the greatest amount of quasi-scholarship I've done in a while)