Santa Fe passenger cars

No. 

 

All Santa Fe fluted (Budd, Pullman Standard) stainless steel cars had no additional painted decoration save for the road name and car name/number.

 

Rusty

I don't know the answer, but you bring up an interesting question.

I'm confused, because most of the color photos. I've seen are of either all aluminum, or silver cars and yet, most model manufacturers produce a light weight car with either a red stripe, or red stripes, which I don't know if they are imitating the prototype, or to make their product more attractive for selling advantages.

Ralph 

Think: Lipstick.   Same color.  Same purpose.

 

KD

 

BTW, perhaps it was a precursor to the days of mergers.  Look at some color photos of SP's Sunset Limited in its latter heydays...   Stainless cars with a red-striped letterboard.  Apparently someone in the toy choo-choo art/marketing department at Lionel in the mid-50's thought, "Wye knot?!"  All downhill from there. 

 

And now we 'suffer' pink GG-1's, 400E's!!   World.  Handbasket.  Hot spots.   Yepper.

 

And now we get to vote.....again.  Be sure you do!!!

 

Lionel's Aluminum Santa Fe cars did come with a red stripe on occasion.

 

The Santa Fe's Stainless Steel cars did not.

Weaver and MTH have done them as well.

Did the lightweight aluminum passenger cars ever have a red stripe? 

David, you didn't specify whether you meant prototype or model.

 

Rusty's answer is correct for the prototype, anything modeled differently is a fantasy paint scheme.  

 

When you use the term aluminum, that seems to refer to models.  Models are sometimes made from aluminum, the prototypes were made from stainless steel.  

 

The posts about aluminum models are correct, there were aluminum models with red stripes. 

Marker,

 

Thanks for pointing that out. 

 

Yes I did mean the prototype. After seeing so many passenger sets made by both lionel and Mth and some others I thought maybe the real ones also had the red stripe but now I know better.

The Santa Fe aluminum cars did come with a red stripe. Look in the 1958 catalog. That was the premier set that year. The price shown in the catalog for the set was $100, which was a tidy sum in those days. I believe in the 1990's or early 2000's Lionel reintroduced that set as the anniversary set. I have that set.

I think that Postwar '58 set was the only SF set that Lionel ever made with a red stripe (except maybe one of the Postwar repo sets, I don't recall). All other Lionel Santa Fe passenger sets - and there have been a number of them besides that anniversary set you mention - have been solid silver, per the prototype.

If we're talking prototype, shouldn't this be under "Real Trains"?

I just love forum police. MYOB

 

Besides I was asking because so many sets made by our train mfgs. Made them with red stripes. 

Afraid you might learn something?

 

There are people that refer to prototype stainless steel cars as aluminum and heavyweight cars as "Madison cars" because models are their point of reference.

 

And model talk occasionally creeps into "Real Trains."

 

Rusty

If we're talking prototype, shouldn't this be under "Real Trains"?

I don't think so, I would guess that David wants a set of passenger car for a 3 rail train that replicate the prototype.  There have been a number of manufacturers that have produced such sets.  

 

There have also been some fantasy sets like the red striped sets that are also fun to own and to a lot of train owners, preferable.

 

Personally I've owned a lot of passenger cars that I pulled behind Santa Fe diesels.  I've enjoyed them all, starting with 15", then moving to 18", and finally a scale.  Although I am scale now I still enjoy the original Lionel "Speedliner" cars, and the pre Lionel AMT cars, which had some interesting versions of scale trucks used in the 40's.

 

 

 

 

 

who are we to criticize/question the addition of a red stripe or two on a shiny stainless steel passenger car??

 

KD 

 

K-Line and perhaps others also made black Santa Fe cars with a red stripe.  I think that the fantasy schemes look very nice and add variety to the layout.  

 

Joe 

No Stripe on my  Lionel Anniversary Set …
I do like the stripe on the Motive!   







Hope this helps.

K.C.

And the Burlington painted 4960 and 5632 gold a couple of times...

 

The red paint job was for a one time event lasting a week or so in 1964, long after steam vanished from Santa Fe rails.  A GE special if I remember correctly.  There's even coal piled up on the oil tank, but that doesn't make it a coal burner. 

 

The red Prairie was in no way typical of Santa Fe steam operations.  After the event was over, the 1010 was repainted black and placed back in storage.

 

Context is everything.

 

Rusty

I have the anniversary set, too, and like it. Maybe the best Lionel ever made.   To me, shiny aluminum, unadorned with paint, is Santa Fe passenger service - memories of what I rode as a kid.  But some of the factory model schemes to look pretty, I admit.  However I will admire them on other layouts.  All the ATSF cars I have, maybe 16 or so, are just shiny alum. 

"I have the anniversary set, too, and like it. Maybe the best Lionel ever made."

 

I agree, Lee. I have the Sante Fe 15" cars from 1992 that look the same without the finished interiors. The Anniversary Set took what was good in 1992 and just made them better.

The thing that always got me was the lower letterboard - no real Budd car ever had that feature.

 

I too run red letterboards behind ATSF PAs - almost all my bare aluminum cars have the red letterboard with Southern Pacific on them.