I have four Long Island cars in the shop and in the course of striping paint several questions have come up.
1. What kind of paint did they use?
2. How did they apply it?
3. Was it a mop?(horrible texture)
4. Did these cars ever have red as a color?
5. When and why did they go to the 2 little windows instead of one big one?
6. Does anyone have any experiance with taking the window configuration back to one big one?
I'm sure many more questions will pop up.

irss@eriecoast.com

> I have four Long Island cars in the shop and
> in the course of striping paint several
> questions have come up.
> 1. What kind of paint did they use?
> 2. How did they apply it?
> 3. Was it a mop?(horrible texture)

Can't speak to this, we sandblasted the cars clean and made metal patch repairs when we did the two Western Maryland cars.

> 4. Did these cars ever have red as a color?

No, except that the parlor cars had a red stripe. They may have been battleship grey with the Dashing Dan herald when first built, but I am no Long Island expert there. Many cars had an orange window stripe (World's Fair Paint scheme)

> 5. When and why did they go to the 2 little
> windows instead of one big one?

Not all cars had this, some 2700's had single windows. Smaller windows are easier and quicker to maintain and are a smaller target to rock throwers.

> 6. Does anyone have any experiance with
> taking the window configuration back to one
> big one?

Yes, my company (DL&W Car Company) rewindowed two LIRR cars for the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad in 1991. We removed the aluminum two piece sash, cut the windows three inches taller, and replaced with one piece FRA type II safety glass in an on-line rubber gaset. We had some false trails getting a best performing gasket at first, some tried to leak. We then added a legitimate window sill on the inside. With the fixed thre-two seats replaced with walkover seats out a scrapped RDC car, you can hardly tell you are in a LIRR car from the inside, and you have to look twice to recognise it from the outside.

Steve Zuiderveen


SZuidervee@aol.com