Canadian National coach 5046 has been restored by Railroad Museum of New England to its 1937-1945 appearance. RMNE believes this is the only extant CN passenger car restored to this painting style.

Built by Canadian Car & Foundry in 1923, 5046 was finally retired from CN service as a Montreal commuter car in 1991. Purchased and donated to RMNE by Thomas Brown, 5046 was in service from 1996 on RMNE's operating excursion trains until Spring 2013. It was looking rather shabby on the exterior and it was due some shop time.

Work commenced in June 2013, and included: strip exterior to bare metal, replace all four corner posts, perform steel repairs as needed on carbody, rebuild four vestibule side doors, change trucks and make needed repairs to interior. The carbody end doors were taken down to original mahogany by Marty Bernard, boomer restorationist.

During the process, the 1937 "tilted wafer" CN monogram was revealed, and that made the decision to use the 1937-45 paint and lettering scheme. There were a very few photos in books to work from, for an overall layout and placement of the letters and stripes. A drawing of the monogram was purchased from Strasburg Rail Road and was modified/tweaked by RMNE's Tony Pratt and this correspondent. Paint used was S-W enamel, based on color samples provided a few years ago by Kent Mc Clure of Monticello Railroad Museum.

During the week of Nov. 18, the primed and repaired carbody was painted and finished.

Many late nights and long days went into this project, to have the car ready for the start of Holiday train operations on Nov. 30.

Work to be done this week: apply all doors (were refinished off the car), apply handrails, a little more paint touchup, decorate car inside and out, fill with Santa, Mrs. Santa, elves and happy (paying) passengers!!



A crummy photo in poor light, 4:40 PM Sunday 11/24/13.

More pics to follow.

Howard P.
MP 6, Thomaston, Conn.

Howard;

From the photo this looks to be an outstanding piece of work by your group. I especially like that they chose to restore the original vestibule diaphragms, rather than go to those ugly, but functional, round rubber tubes that modern passenger equipment uses.

That's different... Simple and elegant wins the day, as it were.

Ghost of the Tilted Wafer revealed!!



5046 on left, CNR 5114 on right, inside for dressing with lights and decorations. 5114 was painted about 12 months ago.




RMNE Shop Elves removing masking, etc. L to R: Lee Van Idersteen, Dave Manning, John Springer and Kurt Viener.

This is really a striking, elegant yet understated painting and lettering style. A couple more photos will follow.

Howard P.

Thanks, Paul!! Rubber tubes?? FEH!!! The original diaphragms are in place and functional, so they are left alone. There are some areas of top outer hood canvas that should be replaced, it's "on the list"....

Couple more photos:

Dave Manning applying lettering to west side of car.




Tony Pratt going around with touch up of the CNR #11 Green.



Howard P.

A simple yet stunning paint scheme, well done! Not to revive the Southern coach thread, but its interesting to note the change in the green, natural lighting vs. in the shop. (Would that paint scheme be appropriate for the other in-service coaches? In the future, of course; I'm sure they are "on the list".)

Change trucks? Back to the original, or just whatever was expedient?

5046 needed some wheels to be turned, and we had a matching pair with just about new profile wheels under another car of this same class (stored, not in service). Also, those "replacement" trucks had been blasted and primed about 20 years ago and were not heavily caked with dirt, car cement, etc. It saved a lot of needle scaling, and provided a good base for the black paint applied to the trucks.

So, yes, expedient it was, and also original (as in original type).

Howard P.

Magnificent!

As a CNR guy I really appreciate how you have two CNR coaches in contrasting paint schemes!

I happen to like a museum presenting historic equipment in the historic paint scheme. The CNR green/gold/black is quite possibly one of the most beautiful ever applied. First class job, guys.

A few years ago we had a thread about olive green colors such as "Pullman green." The remark was made about how the color will differ in bright sun vs to in the shade, etc. Changing from looking more green to more brown depending on the lighting.

Thanks, The cars really look nice, and it's good to see a sensitivity for preserving original fabric.

Now, this is how passenger cars should look!

If only we could get a whole string of them with a steam engine to pull them. . .wouldn't that look beautiful on the Adirondack line, or anywhere else for that matter?

We have a whole string of them!! One at a time, guys, one car at a time.

And why not have them look good on the Naugy behind steam power?

ADK had a few of these at their start in 1992 and got rid of them within a few years, favoring the streamlined smooth-side 1954 CN coaches that now make up their fleet.

I agree, this is how passenger car should look, and I daresay, what our visitors expect to see: old cars, with rivets and dark green paint and opening windows and vintage interiors. Around here, if you want "modern", ride Metro-North!

Howard P.