The Colour of Trains in the 1950's

There was another way things American and the United States dawned on me as a child growing up in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Canadian trains--at least the ones I saw--were somber in color. Freight trains in the 50's were made up mostly of boxcars, and "boxcar red" on the Canadian Pacific Railway was a dull brick primer colour. Tank cars were all black in the era before their owners started painting them green and other colours to show they were environmentally friendly.

Canadian Pacific passenger trains were a burgundy colour the Railway called "Tuscan red." Until stainless steel streamliners came in the mid 1950's, CP coaches were all virtually the same color, with yellow brick lettering on them.

Canadian National passenger trains--which I saw less often, as Calgary was primarily a CP town--were olive green with yellow lettering and black trim.

These colours were not of much interest to a child fascinated by coloured lights and drawn by spools and bobbins of brightly colored thread in my mother's sewing box.

American trains, however, were more brightly coloured. I knew that from the Lionel electric trains I saw in stores and in the home of a family friend.

There were the bright yellows of Union Pacific, the silver and red of Santa Fe, and the deep green and orange of Great Northern. They were a feast to the eye.

In the summer time I saw real trains of American passenger coaches pass through Calgary on their way to the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific. These were actually trains of CPR's American subsidiary, the Soo Line, that ran from Chicago to Minneapolis/St. Paul westward to cross the Canadian border in Saskatchewan and join up with the CP mainline to Vancouver.

The first time I saw one of these, it looked like a circus train from a children's story book, like "The Little Engine that Could." The coaches were brightly coloured, in contrast to Canadian ones. And there were different colours in the same lineup, not the solid burgundy or olive green of CP and CN trains.

My dad explained to me that there were no American railroads as long as Canadian ones. (This has changed now, with the buy-ups and consolidation.) There were more railroads serving a local base, each with its own distinct name and colour scheme.

Perhaps that runs parallel to the American banking system. But from a child's eye view, this meant a greater variety to chose from. And perhaps with more and smaller competing lines, these had to outdo each others in the boldness of their paint schemes.