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 I'm curious if Great Northern painted their heavyweight equipment to the orange/green/yellow during steam era? Just looking to buy either a streamlined smoothside MTH set or a heavyweight Pullman set painted in the orange/green/yellow scheme to go with the new MTH S2 Northern. Have not found much in my research on the net

Al

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According to this site sometime after 1947 to match the streamlined cars painted so.

 

http://www.gngoat.org/paint_schemes.htm

 

"1947 saw the delivery of the "Postwar Edition" of the Empire Builder from American Car & Foundry on which the orange/green/gold stripe scheme first appeared.  All subsequent passenger car deliveries for various GN trains used this same paint scheme.

Example:  http://www.gngoat.org/hood5.jpg

At first, only the streamlined lightweight passenger equipment wore the orange/green/gold stripe.  Later on, some heavyweight equipment was painted into this scheme to better match lightweight equipment on trains like the Western Star, Fast Mail and others."

Last edited by BobbyD

Much of the GN heavyweight equipment was repainted to the orange/green "Empire Builder" scheme. Examples abound of baggage cars, RPOs, coaches, diners and solarium/observation cars in EB colors. Some baggage cars even made it to Big Sky Blue eventually. 

 

Such re-painted cars, however, never operated behind GN steam. GN passenger trains were completely dieselized by 1951.  The S-2 Northerns handled freight after that, until they were retired. Repainting of the heavyweight cars generally started after 1951, when some of them were needed for service on the Western Star and secondary trains.

 

There is lots of photos and films of pullman green heavyweight cars behind orange and green E7 or F3 diesels, but none I have ever found of orange/green cars behind GN steam.  (The Portland section of the streamlined Empire Builder in 1947-48 occasionally was pulled by SP&S steam power.)  

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